


Hold Your Heart

by itsallaboutzarry



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: And then all over again, Bartender Niall, Famous Harry, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Messy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Professor Zayn, Singer Harry, Slow-ish burn, Strangers to Lovers, Time - Freeform, Trains, but not really, friends to strangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-01-29 23:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 79,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12641562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallaboutzarry/pseuds/itsallaboutzarry
Summary: “Last night was fun,” Harry read with a whine. “Call me sometime.Call me sometime?” He put his cheek against the table, his hands falling next to his face. “What does that even mean?” he groaned, shifting to partly hide himself from the bright overhead light and partly from Nym. He knew she would get judgy and Harry wasn’t in the mood.“I guess it means what it says.”Or, Harry, a lost singer/songwriter is trying to make new music after being dubbed a one hit wonder, failing to write another hit for years, when he meets Zayn on the train to San Francisco, and suddenly, he’s all kinds of inspired.





	1. I won't mistake you for problems with me

**Author's Note:**

> The updates will most likely be sporadic, posted once every blue moon.  
> I have to thank [Amanda](http://nich0lasmatthews.tumblr.com/), [Sam](http://itszarry.tumblr.com/) and [Hanna](https://smoke-flowers.tumblr.com/), for the encouragement, help and reading this over (more than once and fast as lightning) for me. You're all incredibly lovely.
> 
> Anyway... here we go.

It's been four songs and a half, practically five, that Harry's been sitting on the train in seat 42C looking out of the window and waiting to hear the whistle that means _go_. He's been skipping his songs lately, waiting just until the chorus bursts through his headphones and then playing the next one, whichever was coming up next on shuffle, wanting to move on and move forward, not wanting to get stuck repeating one song over and over again, not wanting it burrow its way into his brain with a shovel like he usually lets it. He sighs with his shoulders just as a woman standing on the platform with her suitcase between her legs looks at him. Harry tries to smile at her, because two seconds of kindness from a stranger has flipped his day from mediocre to good before, but he barely manages, offering her nothing more than a twist of his lips. She returns the smile though, even if her eyes try to say something else, something like _chin up,_ like she knows what he’s thinking. Harry sighs again and closes his eyes, listens to the rest of _Tupelo Honey_ and then plays it again.

It's difficult to not miss the days when he could barely catch his breath between performing and interviews, always something to do, someone to talk to, a photo to be taken and posted online, always with a smile on his face no matter his mood. More than the relentless tempo of it, Harry misses Roberto, a permanent fixture to his shadow, looming and two heads bigger than him, broad in a menacing way, but with a kind face and an ear ready for when Harry thought of a joke all on his own. Roberto never laughed, maybe Harry managed to make him snort at the best of times, but it’s bittersweet thinking of where he is now, whose safety he’s protecting from loud and anxious fans. He misses Lou and Lux, growing up faster than Lou can send him photos of. There was an entire team behind him for almost the stretch of an entire year that Harry spent more time with than his family, and they’ve all gone to bigger and better things, skipping songs like he’s just learning to do.

Harry misses that too, the constant buzz that the inears didn’t cancel out, the adrenaline ups and downs, rocketing him to the top of the atmosphere and plummeting him down to the ground until he was a splat on the pavement, sleeping it off for the next show, the next day, an interview in the morning and then a video shoot that seemingly lasted forever right after. It was good, to be noticed like that, followed to the point where he didn’t know if he had a group of stalkers or not, but Harry didn’t care then, he was riding the wave of his song like he was afraid it was going to dump him into a pile of sand. He tried to live in the moment of it, but they all saw the dunes quickly approaching as another song just wasn’t happening like Jeff and Harry had planned. It’s still unclear if he managed to make it off unscathed.

Or it’s not really a question, Harry guesses, sinking further into his 42C seat, because though he did get placed gently onto the sand, his song being played less and less, the interviews far and few between until Jeff actually had to start calling and offering Harry up like a donkey badly disguised as a prized pony, he hasn’t been able to dig his way out of the hot dunes. Maybe he’s more of an ostrich, hiding himself in front of everyone, as if his hands over his eyes make him invisible and they won’t remember him or call him a _one hit wonder_ that still makes Harry want to cry. That, to Harry’s ears, still sounds a lot like the start of a long winded eulogy.

The one good thing about it all is Harry can take the train again. There are probably a few more positives that came out of being forgotten like yesterday's news, but trains are definitely high on his list. His mom used to put him and Gemma into the car, strap them in and comb back their hair, one hand resting against each of their cheeks. “Follow the names,” she’d say, more to Gemma than Harry at that point, reminding her of the piece of paper she’d scribbled all the stops from Jack London to Santa Maria on, all the way from home to the platform their grandma stood on waving as the train wheezed to a stop. That’s how Harry knew summer started, not because the school ended or the heat was beginning to stick his curls to his forehead, promises of ice cream every night after dinner to cool him down. Even if the hammock reappeared in their backyard and Harry was finally allowed to walk around the house in just his underwear as long as he cleaned up his room first - but not outside, because his mom always said the neighbors don’t get a chance to decide if they wanted to see his skinny legs before he’d be running up to them to ask how they are and what they’re up to; the summer doesn’t start. Harry yelled across their street nearly every night from June to August, leaning forward with it to make his voice travel further, taking a step as if he was throwing it like a ball, but even calling Nym and Louis to come out and play on the first school-free afternoon didn’t make summer any more real. It was always nana and her tangerine stained hands holding Harry’s that made it feel like summer was finally here. They made their way to her house near the beach, close enough that when Gemma stopped going, Harry could go swimming all on his own and that was it for Harry, the start of the season. Tangerine and lavender, that was Harry’s summer.

The weather’s not as hot as it was back when his hair was still finding its shape and curve, and Harry wasn’t allowed to walk around Santa Monica by himself, his curls never reaching far below his ears before he had to have it cut. But it’s still nice out, the ever-present smell of California in the air, making him a little sweaty in his optimistically warm sweater, hair finally sitting messily on his shoulders.

He runs his hands through it, flips it all on one side and follows it with his fingers all the way down to the tips, almost smiling, because maybe he was discouraged to let it grow even when he thought he was an adult already, no longer needing to sit in the little car shaped seat at the stylist. Maybe Jeff had a talk with him about preserving a certain image and Harry found himself agreeing, needy for it before he knew what the thrumming in his veins even was, how he craved to be on stage, to sing, to see thousands of faces staring back at him like he hung the moon. Harry didn’t know he’d do anything for it, or just about. If the devil comes asking, Harry will have a pen in his back pocket. Maybe it’s just another good thing to come out of it – trains and long hair. Harry still isn’t convinced it was a fair deal. Maybe he has to press a finger against his own chest if he was to point it at anyone.

Harry thought he was paying attention, that he knew what he was doing, what was about to happen. He felt time trickle down to a stop and drag for those few seconds, opening his eyes and making him look around, at Jeff standing right behind him with a smile and a hand stretched out in front of him. But Harry guesses the time isn’t always right, either.

The song changes to Pink Floyd, a guitar riff Harry wouldn’t know where to begin to learn following the dripping sounds of metal, as he looks out onto the platform again, at the rust eating away the pretty pink pillars, the people either trying to run faster than their feet can keep up with or standing under the metal roof that makes every drop echo like a bullet when it rains.

Harry sighs again, this time with his eyes down on his phone so no one tries to make him smile, because he’s a firm believer of feeling every emotion as it comes, murky and exhausting as they can get, but then _Money_ changes to _Time_ and the clocks go off just as he looks up to see someone squeezing into the seat opposite his. He has to move his knees to the left a bit, because the guy practically collapses onto his seat, 42A, huffing out the kind of heavy breath Harry can feel in his own lungs.

Even if it is the end of November and it looks like it could rain any moment, from the handful of clouds covering up the autumn sun, Harry’s sure the temperature is hovering around sixty, because it’s not getting the memo about the seasons and the changes and the time for snow and nearly Christmas and bells ringing jolly melodies on the street corners in front of Macy’s, so the guy’s forehead is glistening with sweat in the corner of Harry’s eye as he counts the layers on his torso from white t-shirt to the hoodie and leather jacket. More than happy that he isn’t alone in his optimism, Harry smiles to himself and inadvertently at the guy who looks at him with wide eyes before he smiles back with a nod. Harry sees that’s just the shape of his eyes, brown and open, if slightly red in the corners.

It’s hard not to stare now that he’s started, watching the guy pull off his leather jacket and hoodie to reveal a spread of ink covering his right arm and a sprinkle on his left, mostly bunched up around his forearm. He’s probably regretting putting the jacket on in the morning just as much as Harry is his sweater. Except Harry doesn’t have the luxury of taking it off, because he’s pretty sure he’d make things awkward sitting there with no top on. It serves him right, not putting an undershirt on because he likes how the rough material grazes over his nipples every time he moves. He should stop thinking with his nipples and start using his head.

Harry’s switching the song to _Any Color Like You_ when the guy kicks his boot and starts saying something. After an embarrassingly long time of openly staring at how the guy’s t-shirt has settled around his hips and his lips moving as he talks, Harry pulls out his earbud with an awkward, “Sorry, what?” as he tries not to blush.

First the guy smiles, so his nose crinkles and Harry’s mouth opens further under its effect, and then he says, “I said I’m sorry for kicking you,” with a hand scratching at the back of his neck.

Nodding, Harry has to clear his throat before he makes his voice work. “Yeah, no, it’s fine.” He goes as far as waving the guy off, embarrassing himself further when he ends up slapping his own knee. Long hair or not, Harry can’t catch a break. Usually, he’s good with these kinds of things, small talk and chatter just to fill up the silence, looking without making it a creepy stare, like now, because Harry can’t keep his eyes off of the ridiculously handsome guy that’s practically upturning his bag on the seat in search of something. Harry never has trouble coming up with something to say, like a joke that catches attention if not makes someone laugh, but he’s more interested in what the guy is looking for with such fever that he’s biting his lip and squinting, than he is thinking of a good knock knock punch-line.

So he just sits back and looks, legs twisted closer to the wall of the car to avoid any more accidental bumps and admiring the amount of books the guy’s pulled out until he whispers an, “Aha,” that Harry catches, because he’s totally creeping on a complete stranger.

When the guy looks up at him with a frown and catches him red-handed, Harry cowers with his own quiet, “Sorry.”

“What?” the guy asks, putting everything back in its place, because he wasn’t paying any attention to Harry at all whatsoever. Harry’s thanking the gods as he wishes the seat would open up and swallow him, erase every trace of him being there, just so Harry can go back to sighing at the window, wondering if he can fog it up enough to draw a smiley face on it.

“That’s, um, that’s a lot of books.” Harry points his chin at the three hardbacks left out. He wonders if he should just reach for them and start talking about the last book he’s read, not that he even remembers the title, like this is completely normal for him and it’s just the way Harry is – even if it actually is how he usually functions, blabbering utter nonsense in the hopes of amusing and entertaining someone on his own account. Harry doesn’t mind being the butt of Louis’ jokes, but he can’t help the self-consciousness creeping under his skin as the guy smiles at him again, because Harry’s pretty sure he wants to impress him with quick wit and genuinely funny jokes, mention he reads too if that will get him anywhere. It’s definitely getting harder to look at him, especially when Harry thinks he sees the start of a blush creeping up on his cheeks.

Harry watches the guy open one the books in his hands and pull out a pair of glasses from his bag as he puts the rest back inside. If he puts them on, Harry is running off the train. Or he would if it hadn’t started moving. The guy rubs his t-shirt at the glasses before he slides them on and chuckles. “Too many, but never enough.”

“Mhm,” Harry murmurs, appreciating how the glasses frame his already chiselled features, “Exactly.”

After having kept nodding, as if Harry couldn’t possibly agree more, the guy is reaching a hand out, saying, “I’m Zayn,” and surprisingly, Harry doesn’t need a minute to collect himself before they’re shaking their hands firmly.

It’s been a while since Harry’s had to introduce himself. Usually, Louis takes care of that part by hanging over Harry’s shoulders to proudly explain how famous Harry is, even if he isn’t anymore, and Nymeria usually adds how he’s a singer and songwriter and _so good,_ _you should hear some of his stuff_ , even if Harry hasn’t written anything in almost five years and even when he did, it was just one song, enough to get him started but not to keep him going. But Louis is already in Oakland, Harry knows, because he got a photo of his mom’s house as the backdrop to a clear view up Louis’ nostrils in the morning with the words _come home already_ politely attached. Knowing Louis, it’s an extremely mild way of saying he’s already bored.

It’s actually nice, to be able to do this now, say “I’m Harry,” and not have it be a perfunctory act of politeness.

“So, Harry,” Zayn starts, putting his bag between his boots and the book in his lap, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose. “Going home for the holidays?” Zayn asks him with an open face. It’s both hard to keep looking directly at him and impossible for Harry to stop, following the little flecks in the corner of his eyebrow, on the jut of his jaw and now that Harry is looking, he thinks he sees a dusting of freckles over his nose as well. Zayn’s eyes flash every time the train turns and the sun flickers through the gray clouds over the brown and turns them into liquid gold. Harry’s getting self-conscious, except he isn’t sure if it’s because Zayn keeps looking back at him, which makes Harry nervously flip his hair again, or if it’s the fact he doesn’t want Zayn to stop looking.

“You too?”

Zayn laughs a little as he says, “Yeah, you know how it is, mom would have my head if I didn’t go,” the words drawled to Harry’s ears as he thinks he sees Zayn’s eyelids drag with a blink.

Another blink and he can see a his lips curving upward slowly, in fractions of a _barely there_ smile over Zayn’s face, like it’s crawling through thick amber as the sun peaks right through the cloud above the train, shining blindingly on their faces. Harry blinks again and smiles back at Zayn, lets his eyes trail over his face self-indulgently now, since he doesn’t think he’ll get caught. There’s definitely something about Zayn that holds his focus, maybe his wide eyes or the way he’s easily leaning into his seat, his knees spread apart a bit, boots pointing outwards. Harry doesn’t know, but he catalogues everything right up until he sees the peak of Zayn’s tongue between his teeth and time clicks and whirls, picking up dust with its sudden motion and everything goes back to normal, back to how it’s supposed to be.

Without so much as a flinch that would tell Harry he knew what just happened, Zayn finishes with, “She’d probably come get me herself,” and a grin that moves his whole face. He’s squinting through the sun now, shaking his head as he imagines what that’d be like. Harry pictures it with him.

“Oh yeah, same here. Though my mom would probably guilt me into coming anyway or something.” They’re both laughing at each other and their moms, knowing they’re lucky more than anything.

Harry’s wondering how big Zayn’s family is, if his house is full of honorary members too, friends that always felt like they belonged at family dinners and picnics. If Louis and Nym didn’t get invited, they’d probably end up with a t-peed front yard or something equally as ridiculous, but as Harry keeps picturing Gemma marching across the street to rat Louis out to his mom and Nym to her dad, Zayn’s already pointing at the guitar case on the seat next to Harry. He’s optimistically hoping it’ll stay unoccupied for the trip. Zayn asks, “You play guitar?” and his smile finally settles into something small and gentle.

“I, um,” Harry starts, but he has to shake his head to come out of it, because he’s wondering if that’s the smile Zayn shows everyone or if it’s something he likes to keep up his sleeve, for times like this. He’s probably noticed Harry’s permanent blush on his cheeks and is trying to put him at ease. “I try to, but I haven’t really played in a while,” Harry admits, but he doesn’t say how it’s been more than a year to the day since he’s felt strings underneath his fingertips. He’s positive the next time he plays he’ll get blisters. Every time he unhooks the locks of the case, his fingers tremble like he’s about to hold a gun and not the guitar he bought himself with the first big paycheck he got.

“That’s okay, you’ll get back into it,” Zayn says kindly, sounding a lot like he’s been there too, stuck somewhere in the middle, between rock and hard place, an inch away from what he wanted to do most, but couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. Harry’s felt like he’s been on the precipice of the rest of his life ever since he realized that maybe he won’t ever have anything else to say. “We’ve all been there.”

“What do you do?” Harry asks, very casually and easy-going, but when Zayn cocks his head to the side and frowns a little, he remembers that they’re strangers and this might be more than Zayn is willing to invest in their conversation, because he doubts Zayn’s time trickled down to a slow drag to make him pay attention to this. So Harry rushes to say, “If it’s not asking too much,” as fast as he can, but from what people tell him, it’s not as fast as he thinks it is.

“No, no,” Zayn waves him off. Unlike Harry, he doesn’t smack himself with the motion, just drums his fingers over the hardcover book he still has in his lap. It looks like it’s a thousand pages long. “I’m a TA at UCLA.” Which definitely explains that then. Harry tries, but he can’t read the title or the author of it.

“Oh.” Harry never fails to be in awe of anyone who sticks with their education for so long. In his freshman year of college, he got swept off his feet into a fantasy that may not have ended in a _fullstop_ , but it feels like when it eventually does, he won’t have anywhere else to go. _Social studies_ don’t look as appealing to him now as they did when he was eighteen and in it for the parties and the experiences more than the whole graduating part.

Before Harry can think of a calm way to express his genuine amazement, Zayn asks, “Are you a performer? Like, a singer or something?” so he loses the words and blushes instead, but more out of fear of being found out than admitting the guitar case is full of dirty laundry and not a guitar.

“I guess I was, yeah.” It definitely has a sting to it, after all the weeks and months he’s spent sitting on his kitchen counter on the wrong side of midnight, wondering where it all went so left, he can’t make it right anymore.

“Past tense, huh?”

Harry finds it in himself to laugh at Zayn’s sudden change of mood that could almost look like worry if not some sort of sympathy. He shakes his head. “Definitely not present.”

“You’ll get back into it,” Zayn says again, with another one of those smiles that make Harry reflect it back at him. Harry could probably write a song about the curve Zayn’s lips – it wouldn’t be any good, but he could do it. There could be a verse for the line of Zayn’s mouth, another for how his lips part so Harry can see his tongue between his teeth before the chorus about his eyes crinkling and his entire face being held hostage by it, nose scrunching up and eyes in wrinkly crescents, all together making Harry smile too, infectious and bright. It’s been a long time since Harry’s wanted to have his notebook near him, a pen in his hand just to jot a feeling down, a couple of lines, maybe a single word, but he feels the itch for it now. He’ll have to remember it for later, until he gets home, but he thinks he’ll manage to repeat ‘angel’ to himself over and over again. That’s the best Harry can do for now, the word describing the light around Zayn’s face that reminds him of a heavenly halo.

Zayn snorts loud enough for Harry to blink his eyes back up to him, lost in a daze for about two minutes two long. “Have you tried Googling how to cure writer’s block?”

Harry laughs in a burst, slamming a hand over his mouth and furiously looking around to see if anyone’s scowling. Zayn grins at him like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard, but Harry would love to laugh like a normal person, the squawk always catching him off guard like a slap to his cheek. “It’s probably the only thing I haven’t tried.”

“Give it a go, some of the advice isn’t that bad.”

“Oh?”

“So,” Zayn moves in his seat and raises a finger. “You should go for a walk, clear your head, all that good stuff.” Another finger. “Change your environment, go to a coffee shop or something, a library, though that works better if you’re not, you know, singing.” They snicker, Zayn fixing his glasses before he takes them off and tucks them into the neckline of his t-shirt. “I guess you could listen to music, but probably not. Read a book?” Zayn raises his fourth finger, a thick ring gleaming in the passing sunlight. “Maybe make the search a bit more specific.”

“Maybe,” Harry drawls around a laugh. “Those are all good pointers though, I’ll have to try them.”. The truth is, he hasn’t done anything specific, nothing besides wanting to write and knowing he can’t, like he has nothing to say, because he’s run out of words. Or worse, that even if he did, no one would want to hear it. “What do you teach?” Harry asks instead of spiraling down that rabbit hole again. He only lets himself when it’s late enough and he’s alone, because then no one can judge him and he can go as easy and as hard on himself as he has to.

Zayn’s eyes close partly as he looks down at his fingers. He rubs his thumb against the ink on the back of his palm, a half-circle shaped intricate pattern. “English literature,” he sighs, both happily and exasperated. It’s not hard to see there’s more to it than that. “But, I don’t do much teaching yet technically.”

Harry frowns. “How come?”

“Well, as of right now, I’m in charge of printing and photocopying,” Zayn laughs at Harry’s confused look on his face. “Nah, I mean grade papers and all that, I also have a little group I tutor on the side as well, just… Not quite teaching yet.”

“Why not?”

The underlying happiness slips away until Zayn’s shrugging, saying, “I don’t think I’m ready to stand in front of an entire classroom, you know? It’s... Well, it’s terrifying.”

The admission sits foreign with Harry, because there’s nothing that comes close to standing on a stage in front of ten thousand people who sing the words you wrote back to you, each one for a different reason, with a different voice, all of them making Harry feel like he’s standing on the top of the world. He’s always loved a big crowd.

“So I’m a singer who doesn’t sing and you’re a teacher that doesn’t teach,” Harry tries jokingly, because he wants to replace the look in Zayn’s eyes with something less gray-colored, because the weather outside is stuck in his irises and Harry wants to be the wind that blows it away.

“Professor, if we’re getting specific.” Zayn’s eyes do crinkle slightly at that and then his face hardens, brows set in a firm line as he says, “I’ll get there, though,” with the kind of determination Harry needs in his life.

“You will,” he has to agree, because he can see it in Zayn, that he’ll do everything he can to get himself to the point where he’s standing in front of a classroom of students, telling them all about Shakespeare or Chaucer or whoever else. “Have you tried Googling a cure for stage fright?”

“Ha ha. I will though, as soon as I come home.”

They smile at each other, at how ridiculous they are, how they’re both afraid, maybe a little lost.

“What about you though? Do you have any songs I might’ve heard of? Or do you mostly do like, covers?” Zayn’s voice trails off at the end. He scratches at the back of his head as he sends Harry an ‘I’m asking because I want to know, but I don’t know what or how to ask’ look that makes Harry chuckle quietly.

“Yeah, um,” Harry starts, confidently, wanting to tell Zayn how he started with covers of his favorite songs like everyone else does, but got discovered - that’s the word Jeff likes to throw around - when he finally wrote something himself, and that propelled him to where he is now, on the train to San Francisco on Thanksgiving, missing the house he grew up in more than he wants to admit, because it’s the only thing he has to look forward to. Harry bites his tongue and continues, “Do you remember the song _Just a Little Bit of Your Heart_ from a few years ago?”

Zayn nods slowly, frowning as he thinks about it.

“That was me.” Harry nearly points at himself, but he restrains his hands to stay in his lap, an expectant look on his face, because when people find out, they tend to react differently. Some laugh, some get confused and others don’t really care.

Frowning deeper, Zayn opens his mouth and then closes it, opens and closes, and Harry can clearly catch the moment it sinks in for Zayn. “No way. Really?”

Harry still blushes when he has to reaffirm it. He doesn’t know what to think when people need to hear it again, that it was him, that the song they probably couldn’t listen to anymore, because of how many times they’ve heard it by the end was him. “All me.”

“But that was…” Zayn’s probably thinking it was big, on the radio every ten minutes, number one on the charts, played one too many times. He might not, but Harry remembers seeing his own face on billboards and TVs too, in the hot center of it all. “That was a good song,” Zayn settles on and the look in his eyes changes again, from slight disbelief to something happy again. The train crawls down to a stop, but neither get off yet.

“It’s also the last song I’ve written.” Harry laughs at the way Zayn’s expression shifts every time Harry says something, from a smile to a sympathetic frown to confusion. “Nothing good anyway, so I just…” he shrugs like it’s not a big deal and he doesn’t lose sleep because of it. “I stopped trying.”

Zayn hums back, thinking about something before he asks, “Did something happen?” in a way that makes Harry think he’s asking something else.

It’s still one of his clearest memories - the relief washing over his back as if he had shed dead weight by walking all the way home in the middle of the night after breaking up with Jason, and how inspired it all back then, the song that flew him up to the sky, but couldn’t quite keep him there in the end. So many good things have happened since then, good and bad, in the span of five years, but none of them made him want to pick up a pen though, and with each one that passed and flittered into a blur, a deep fear grew in his stomach, of not being good enough and not being good at all. Of being lucky just that one particular time.

“I guess I ran out inspiration,” Harry admits, even if it isn’t the whole truth, but he doesn’t want to burden Zayn with all of his insecurities. He’d rather talk about something light and easy.

“Then that’s what you need, right?” Zayn throws the book out of his lap as he sits closer to the edge of his seat. “Inspiration can go a long way.”

“That’s easier said –”

“Don’t think about how you’re gonna find it,” Zayn cuts him off, leaning forward with his whole body like he’s about to tell him a secret, dropping his voice as he says, “Let _it_ find you.”

Harry shakes his head to not do something stupid now that they’re so close, like run a finger underneath his eye and ask if he’s been getting enough sleep lately, because the lines there look a lot like the ones Harry has too. “You’re being _extremely_ optimistic here.” There’s an itch on the sole of his foot, where his fingers can’t reach now that he has his boots on, that makes Harry want to explain how he was only inspired when he was heartbroken and unable to process what he was feeling, that he _had_ to put it down in words and melody, and maybe the problem is the fact that he hasn’t felt anything like that since that night. When Gemma told him she was pregnant, it wasn’t complicated. Harry was just so happy.

“Okay,” Zayn nods and leans back in his seat, entwines his fingers and looks at Harry with his eyes skirting back and forth. “So you’re saying you were inspired when you wrote that song, _Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart?_ ”

Harry nods. His lips are pinched together, a smile creeping at the corners of his mouth as he looks at Zayn frowning back at him confusedly. It’s endearing, Zayn trying to help him, clearly a line of questions ready to get to the bottom of Harry’s problems. It’s cute. Zayn’s cute.

“I don’t know if I remember correctly,” Zayn says with a raised hand, as if to apologize in advance. “But it was a love song, right?”

“A break-up song,” Harry corrects, suddenly looking down at his shoes. He’s been over this a thousand times, from how to the why to the evaded who. But he doesn’t want to share pathetic details with Zayn.

Zayn hums, an interested noise, before he opens his mouth to ask something else, but Harry gives up with a sigh and cuts him off before he can start.

“It is a love song, I guess.” He shrugs. “It’s whatever you want it to be, but I wrote it after a sudden, but long-overdue break-up, so…” He wants to shrug again, but he doesn’t. “It’s a break-up song to me.”

“Oh.” That’s all Zayn says. _Oh_. Harry doesn’t know what to do with an _oh._ Now he wants to know what Zayn was planning to say, how he was about to inspire Harry. Though, he might have done that already.

“Oh?”

Zayn shakes his head and laughs down at his fingers, running his hands over his thighs as he looks up and licks over his lips. Harry’s stomach lurches with it. “No, um, no break-ups since then?”

“ _Oh._ ” That’s a different thing altogether, Harry thinks as he clears his throat, a blush rolling up his neck. He lifts his sweater from his chest, airing his skin for a quick second before he’s able to look back up at Zayn, who is possibly smirking back at him. “A few,” he stutters out, shrugs, because it’s not a big deal, not even a little deal. “Or, I guess…”

“You guess what?”

“I guess not that many, actually.”

Zayn gives him a prompting look that Harry wants to ignore, but as he looks out the window, he doesn’t know why he wouldn’t talk about this. Especially with someone he doesn’t have to see again, even if he wants to, Harry really does.

“I tend to jump into things,” he starts, feeling like he should smile shyly, bite his lips to seem like he isn’t completely hopeless. “Once I like someone, I like them. And then I can get, _somewhat_ , ahead of myself and the like isn’t just a like anymore, but some people don’t appreciate the suddenness of it.” _Most people_ , Harry corrects himself, _none of them_. Everyone thinks it’s too fast, too desperate, too attached too soon. And all Harry can do is listen and nod, hope they let him down easy, so he can go over to Nym’s place where she keeps a bowl of ice-cream especially for him in the freezer. Chocolate chip can only do so much though.

Zayn nods as he talks, his eyes widening by the time Harry’s done talking, and then he looks like he’s going to say _oh_ again. “Well.” It’s not much better. “You’re clearly picking the wrong people then.”

Harry frowns. “What?”

“If you’re fast to fall, you need someone who’s going to be quick to catch you.” Zayn doesn’t shrug, but he might as well for how coolly he leans further into his seat. “You're missing a wide end receiver.”

“A what?”

Zayn laughs. “Football?”

“No I know what -” Harry shakes his head. “I know what a receiver is.”

“I think,” Zayn says as he licks over his lips again, smiling through it. Embarrassingly, but completely justified, it sends a shiver down Harry’s spine. “I think you need to find someone who’s, you know, going to catch you,” Zayn winks, “Or try to get less… serious so fast.”

“Yeah,” Harry hums. It’s not the first time he’s hearing this, not even close, Louis and Nym always having something to say when Harry meets someone new. He wonders what they’d say about Zayn, if they’d approve of him or make snide comments behind his and Harry’s back like they always do. But Harry’s never thought of someone catching him. It’s always _slow down_ , _put your heart away, not so fast_. Always something wrong with him, never anyone else. Maybe all he needs is a _wide end receiver_. Harry chuckles. “Maybe.”

“I can’t imagine someone not wanting to date the famous Harry Styles though,” Zayn jokes, his eyes shining the more the sky clears up.

“Oh, trust me. When you’re not that famous anymore, it’s not so hard to believe.”

“At least you can take the train again, right? That’s something.” Zayn’s head lolls back, his eyes blinking slowly again, but the time pulses as it always does, it’s regular _tick tick tick_ whooshing by the windows.

“Yeah,” Harry breathes out. “It’s definitely something.”

They’re whistling by the half point of their journey when Harry sighs at the window again. When he was five, maybe six years old, just the time it took to get to Santa Monica used to drag into infinity, time slow and the train slower. Their mom used to pack them a snack, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, maybe a couple Reese’s cups, Cheez-Its, but always two apples. Now Harry can’t have one without thinking of Santa Monica, the sun, the beach or tangerines, always tangerines.

“We solved your relationship problems,” Zayn says softly, rousing Harry from wondering whether Gemma is already at Anne’s house, waddling her way from the toilet to the couch, complaining the entire time. He smiles at the thought and then at Zayn. “Now we just have to solve that inspiration issue you seem to have.”

“Please,” Harry motions forward with his hand, “be my guest.”

Zayn laughs at him, his tongue between his teeth and his face hard to look at. “I couldn’t get past this one scene in my book, right? And I tried to force it, but everything I wrote was just complete shit,” Zayn shakes his head at himself. “So I gave up on it, I really did, but then it just came to me, kind of like in a dream. It wasn’t anything or anyone in particular, I just figured it out with time.”

Harry’s nodding along as Zayn talks, but all he asks is, “You write?” because he can’t make himself think about giving even more time for whatever it is to knock on his door with its tail between its legs, inspiration or whatever you want to call it, apologizing for taking so long to come back.

He swears Zayn blushes again and every time he does, it makes Harry want to kiss him. He’s never felt that particular urge before and he doesn’t know what to make of it.

There’s something shy about how Zayn says, “I try to.”

“Anything I might have read before?” Harry asks with a smirk, because doesn’t want to be serious or fast or keep his heart on his sleeve. But he might as well have some fun.

“Ha,” Zayn snorts. “No, not quite past that stage yet. Maybe one day. Now it’s just…”

“Just?”

“Sometimes I get tired or reading, so I just thought why not try writing, you know.”

“If you ever need another set of eyes or like, a completely unbiased opinion from someone you barely even know,” _because I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I want to. I want to know what your voice sounds like in the morning, what side of the bed you sleep on, what your favorite song is so I can sing it for you, what you taste like right before you fall asleep._ Maybe Zayn isn’t even single, but Harry doesn’t know how to ask that without coming off as completely desperate and embarrassing himself. It would seem like he wasn’t listening. And he is, he is.

“Really?”

He tries not to squirm under Zayn’s raised eyebrows. “Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, I can email you when, and if, I ever finish it, because it honestly feels like it’s never going to be done,” Zayn rambles and Harry whines quietly when he catches himself, because Zayn’s mouth was starting to get loose around some of the vowels, and Harry can admit he was willing to listen for an hour to anything Zayn had to say. “This isn’t weird?”

“Why would it be weird?” He feigns nonchalance.

“You’re like, famous.”

Harry snorts. “It was very short lived. Trust me.”

“Still…”

“Zayn,” Harry says his name for the first time and he doesn’t miss the way Zayn’s lips twitch. He wishes he knew what it means. “I’d actually love to read your book if you want me to. No pressure,” he adds, just to seem more light, easy, slow.

“Yeah,” Zayn smiles and Harry nearly says he’d do just about anything to make him smile like that too. “Okay.”

Pulling out his phone, Zayn looks up at him and listens to Harry recite the _hstyles94_ Gmail Jeff made him, because apparently _stylesbunny_ didn’t have a good ring to it for an up-and-coming singer. With a nod, it’s saved to Zayn’s contacts, probably under Harry, maybe with something like ‘the guy from the train’ in parentheses next to it. If Jeff finds out Harry just gave his personal email to a near stranger he’s going to sit Harry down for another one of his serious talks, but if Harry tells him how he hoped he could give Zayn his number too and ask if he wanted to meet up again for coffee or maybe even dinner sometime, Jeff would go easier on him. He’d still sit Harry down, but instead of stern, his eyes would be soft and concerned, probably cooing something like _oh, Harry_ in a tone of voice that would make Harry’s insides cringe.

“Thank you,” Zayn says, looking up at him again. Harry has a hard time believing Zayn’s real, but he has to be, because Harry’s dreams are never this vivid or this kind, offering genuine support to the way Harry’s lost his way a little bit. Zayn makes him feel warm, like the world isn’t all people spitting on the sidewalk or his manager being more occupied with the other artists he’s signed along the way while Harry hasn’t so much as looked at a guitar. The fact that Zayn will be gone as soon as one of them gets off the train, like a whisper of something that could’ve been, just a ghost of the best thing that never happened, makes it all viscerally real.

“Of course. Maybe I’ll send you a song if I ever write one again.”

“You will,” Zayn insists again. “And when you do, I’d love to hear it.”

Harry turns towards the window again, wanting to preserve some dignity by at least not looking at Zayn as he blushes red and hot. “Where are you headed to?”

“Oakland.”

“The bay,” Harry nods. At least he knows where this stops and he has to go on like it never happened. He can already tell he’s going to wait for that email, jumping for his phone whenever it _pings_. If it never comes, Harry will just have to hate himself forever.

“Small world, huh,” Zayn says right as the train starts shaking a little, crawling towards the last stop as people around them are already standing up and getting their bags.

Harry says, “Yeah, I guess so,” and they silently decide to wait until the train clears and they can walk out without elbowing anyone in the process. It’s almost like time is slowing down again, gradually trickling its pace as they finally get to their feet and share an awkward laugh. It feels like Harry’s ignoring it and it can’t have that, not when it makes sure Harry pays attention.

Harry could say something now, but he watches Zayn put his bag over his shoulder, so he hoists his guitar case on his back instead, biting his lip and walking after Zayn, down the train and onto the platform.

“So,” he starts when they’re standing facing each other, his gut twisting, because he says, “I’ll talk to you when you finish your book,” and not what he actually wants to, the words bubbling in his chest bursting into nothing. There’s something seriously wrong with him, like a part of his brain broke loose and all he keeps thinking of is being close to someone, sharing warmth, of soft lips and softer touches, not particularly caring who they come from, messing him up in ways he doesn’t know how to fix. It was a shock at first, but Harry’s not surprised he’s had trouble finding inspiration. He’s not surprised it’s been avoiding him.

“If you don’t write a song before that.” Zayn grins at him. He leans his head to the side and Harry doesn’t quite know what the look in his eyes means again. He knows what he wants it to mean though.

“I think it’s going to take years.”

Zayn blinks slowly and shrugs. “I guess we’ll see.”

They stand there staring at each other on the platform, knowing that this is where Zayn walks to the bus stop and Harry goes around the corner where Louis is waiting to pick him up. Their families are waiting, turkeys browning in ovens, cranberries already sauced and potatoes mashed.

“It was nice meeting you, Harry.”

“You too, Zayn.”

His gut twists further and he has to swallow against the knot in his throat, because he wants to say something so badly, anything, but all he can do is sigh when Zayn leans forward and kisses his cheek, a lingering smile tugging at his lips. And because maybe he hasn’t been listening, maybe Harry hasn’t been paying attention, time stops. It’s not a slow trickle or thick molasses. As if someone’s hit pause on the remote that controls the rotation of the Earth, it stops spinning and everything hangs in a deep breath, in the middle of the air.

Harry takes a step back, brushing his cheek against Zayn’s as he does, stepping away from the hand that’s hovering right above his arm, not quite touching him. Harry looks around himself with wide eyes, taking it in, seeing the moment for what it is.

It’s always the same feeling that starts burning in the bottom of his stomach, something urgent and insistent, red hot and _pay attention_. Harry is as nervous with it as he was the first time, even though it feels the exactly the same. Now he’s at the train station, there are bags suspended in the air, nearly but not quite hitting spines and hips, coats almost pulled on, feet in the air, mouths slightly open.

Harry was playing a gig at the Plough that Niall signed him up for, though more than a gig, it was the mandatory two original songs, one of which was the song he wrote after ending the wreck of a relationship that still follows him around. The song about how he lost track of all the breaks and starts and still-together’s, and the pause after he said ‘I love you’ one night, lying in bed, more thinking out loud than making a proclamation so it just slipped out, without Harry meaning to, without him meaning it. The song wrote itself when he walked home at two in the morning that night, thinking if the year they spent together wasn’t worth more than, ‘I mean, I think I love you a little? Is that okay?’ It wasn’t, so Harry put it down in melody and rhyme and performed it at the Plough for the first time almost five years ago.

The crowd wasn’t eating out of his hand, the words too sorrowful for them to take them like that, greedy and demanding, but they took them, every last syllable, until Harry was standing on that little stage and like a soft breeze, the eyes looking up at him knowing exactly what he wanted to say and how he needed to get it off his chest just stared, blankly, in perfect silence as time stood still – utterly and completely still. Harry had just enough time to take a deep breath and admire the silence, but not quite enough to get lost in it, before someone was tapping him on the shoulder and the world propelled forward, falling back into its motion. That was the night he met Jeff and a month later, the song safely recorded on a CD. Jeff signed him onto his team, _fullstop_ he called it, because, “This is when you start your new life, H.”

Too bad it ended with an ellipsis, trailing off into forgetfulness and irrelevance when Harry couldn’t write another song as good or as big or as popular. Jeff still calls him for updates every few weeks, but Harry’s been slowly dodging his calls. He hopes Jeff gets the hint soon.

It lasts longer this time, the pause that stops everything around him, even the train, so Harry can focus, really focus on what’s right in front of him. Like he should always look back on this moment and think of something, awe like in the Plough or uncontrolled excitement when Gemma told him she was pregnant this spring, Harry should be paying attention, that’s what this is for. When time stops, he’s supposed to keep his eyes open and take it all in, because it’s important and he’s going to want to remember this moment forever. He doesn’t know why time stops for him, why it happens for what he knows are pivotal moments, like it signals a new chapter in his life, but Harry’s learned that he needs to pay attention when they happen, because it’s always big, it always means something.

He blinks and looks around himself again. One of the ladies working the train has her foot suspended in mid-step, falling graciously off the train. There’s a man with his hat halfway off his head and a girl with her hair over her face, clearly in the middle of making a ponytail while she’s walking, Harry can tell. He flips his own hair again and turns back around. Another blink and he focuses on Zayn.

His eyes are closed, lips slightly pursed into a kiss. If Harry wouldn’t feel embarrassingly creepy, he’d kiss him lightly, just a soft press of his lips. But he doesn’t, he just looks at the freckles dusting over the bridge of Zayn’s nose and at the slope of his shoulders. The heels of his boots aren’t touching the ground, not exactly standing on the tips of his toes, but almost. He’s hunched over a little, leaning forward towards where Harry was standing just a couple of seconds ago. Harry smiles and shakes his head.

He steps closer again, back into Zayn and just slightly to the left so his hand is placed gently on Harry’s arm, instead of hovering right above it. Harry is supposed to pay attention, look closely and focus, so he does. He never really knew why it happens, why some moments are more important than others, he just trusts it. And he does now too.

Leaning forward, he grazes, barely touches his lips against Zayn’s cheek and hums under his breath. Harry’s paying attention, his eyes wide open and trained on Zayn, waiting for the time to pick up again, start and move forward, move on.

Zayn blinks at him slowly, something small playing on his lips as he takes a step back, turns around and walks away.

Instead of saying something, Harry watches him leave.

But he's paying attention. His eyes are wide open. He’s slowing down.

* * *

“What about you sweetie? Anything happening on the horizon?” His mom asks, piling the plates into one tall tower in the middle of the table. They’ve all eaten well past their limits, humming quietly now with each exhale as the food settles in their stomach. Harry might need to unbutton his jeans, finally too tight around his waist, but Louis will make fun of him forever for it, because Harry didn’t plan ahead like him and worn sweats. He didn’t even have time to change before Gemma was trying to hug him around her growing belly and Niall was patting his back with that proud smile that’s permanently stuck on his face now. Nymeria ruffled his hair until he whined and Anne just smiled and kissed his cheek, and though the gesture was kind and loving, it unsettled Harry to the point he let himself be ushered to the table and then the next thing he knew, the turkey was being carved and he was eating.

So he groans as an answer, loud and frustrated, because if hitched a ride with Louis and Nym, and he hadn’t insisted on going with the stupid train, Harry could’ve avoided the regret and shame heating his face. But then, he probably wouldn’t be thinking of how he wants to write a song for Gemma and her hands lying peacefully against the swell of her belly, her head on Niall’s shoulder and her eyes leisurely blinking as she waits for Harry to say something. Gemma has always been there for him and for his mom, the strongest out of all three of them with her step-by-step plans and meticulous to-do lists that they wouldn’t know what to do without. She’s the one that makes them move forward, out of crappy apartments after the divorce with a stern look at Anne and, “This family needs a serious change,” coming out her mouth as if she was older than thirteen when she said them. She was the one that made Niall sign Harry up for his first ever gig and she suggested Anne go on dates again, now that Harry and Gemma are all grown up and their mom spends more time alone than she should.

“Nothing new,” Harry says, biting his lip as a melody, soft and slow, uplifting and innocent, just like Gemma knows how to be, but isn’t in front of anyone who she doesn’t know better than the back of her hand, slowly builds in his head. He leans his head to the side and says, “Nothing on the horizon,” thinking of summer.

“Oh, sweetie,” Anne starts to coo, but then Louis snipes, “Really? Because I could’ve sworn you kept looking at that train station like you were searching for someone,” because Louis never knew how to keep his nose out of things. The incredibly pleased grin on his face tells Harry he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Were you?” Nym asks. “Looking for someone?” She’s sitting sideways in her chair, her feet propped up in Louis’ lap.

His mom has been dating, but nothing serious, nothing that lasts long enough to bring anyone around, she always says when they ask. But Harry’s noticed the flowers around the house, pretty bouquet he knows she wouldn’t buy for herself.

Harry’s always been the odd one out, the third or the fifth, sometimes ninth wheel, sitting on a chair in front of the booth, because he never has anyone to press up against, to lean his head on, not one lap where he could stretch his feet on.

“No.” Harry shakes his head, definitely not, most certainly not, but then he says a quiet, “I mean, maybe,” because he can’t help the smile that’s curving his lips upwards, so he says, “No,” again, more for himself than the expectant eyes now glued to his face.

“Liar.”

“Harry.”

“Come on, you can tell us.”

“Yeah, tell us.”

Niall’s the only one who spares him. Gemma did pick a good one.

“I’m not a liar,” Harry defends first, pointing his tongue at Gemma. “You two stay out of it and there’s really nothing to tell, mom,” he goes easy on her. She looks so hopeful it breaks his heart a little. “I met someone on the train, but that’s it. End of story.”

“You didn’t get his number?”

“No.” Harry thinks of his email, there for Zayn to use if he wanted to. And god, Harry really wants him to, but he realizes he didn’t give him a reason to, not really. But that’s good, that’s what Zayn said, right? To go slow, to stop falling so insistently, without someone there to catch him. “I gave him my email, but,” he shrugs.

“Your email?” Louis raises his eyebrow. “I thought you’d have given him at least a blo-” Louis cleared his throat as he cut himself off, his eyes wide. “Something,” he supplies, “I thought you’d have given him at least something.”

“Shut up.” Nymeria flicks her foot to his stomach.

“Harry,” Anne says quickly, always careful of how her children talk to other people. Harry doesn’t think he knows anyone that apologizes or gives thanks more than she does. He’s always loved her soft voice when she says ‘excuse me?’ He looks over at her now, ready to say sorry, but then she asks, “Was he handsome?” in the way that tells him she’s been spending far too much time with Louis.

“Yes, okay? He was very handsome and really smart and I…” _God, this is embarrassing_. I didn’t do anything about it.”

The coos that follow manage to muffle Louis’ snort, but they don’t make Harry feel any better, so he looks over at Gemma, because she’ll tell him, she’ll make sure he knows if he’s fucked up.

“Why didn’t you ask him out?” she asks, rubbing a hand over the side of her stomach like she does when the baby kicks at her ribs. Harry remembers how nervous she was at first, calling Harry like there was a spider in her apartment and she locked herself in the bathroom again, but when he got there, panting from the three mile run, she just blurted out ‘I’m pregnant’ and then as if Harry had any clue, she asked ‘What do I do?’ Her words were slow and drawling, timbering off into a single sound as she got stuck in mid step on her way to his already open arms. The bags under her eyes showed she hadn’t slept for a couple of nights, her bruised bottom lip that she had been biting it instead of her nails. Harry stood there and looked at her for however long that pause lasted, time still, the world unmoving, wondering how he ever got so lucky to have such a strong pillar of a sister. She could be as stubborn as Harry, had the same cupid’s bow and smaller dimples in her cheeks, but they were one and the same, the Styles kids, too smart for their own good. He knew he needed to be there for her to, finally, for the first time.

As soon as her foot touched the floor again, Harry jumped to her and hugged her, said ‘Whatever you do, I’m here’ and then stayed the night so they could talk about it all, about everything.

Harry was never very good at lying, but especially to Gemma, so he says, “I don’t know,” because that’s the truth, or at least the half he’s willing to share.

“Okay,” Gemma nods, her stubbornness showing. “Then either figure it out or stop blushing like a ten year old boy with a crush.”

Surprisingly, the calmness of the words as she says them reaches Harry more gently than he expected and he thinks it might actually work. Or it will work better than Louis’ chicken calls and his mom’s continuous coos, the words, “You’ll meet someone one day and you’ll ask them on a nice date,” more or less dampening his mood, because the could’ve and should’ve haven’t had time to be processed quite yet, but Harry’s going to move on, he is.

Tired of repeating it to himself, he sighs and nods. He usually doesn’t call his mom when it doesn’t work out, when he hears, _it’s not you, it’s me_ and knows that’s the opposite of what they’re trying to say. Harry doesn’t call her, not right away, but sooner or later, he’ll pour himself a glass of wine and they’ll watch something on TV together, over the phone, miles apart. It still makes him feel better.

Not tonight though, because when Nymeria and Louis leave with a promise of a ride back on Sunday and cellophane wrapped turkey sandwiches, and Gemma and Niall settle on the couch with Anne for a late-night movie, Harry goes up to his room and thinks about how Zayn’s voice wavered when he talked about teaching in front of a group of people. He keeps thinking of how he wants to help Zayn overcome that, sit in the front row with his thumbs up and tell him he should take his time with it to not overwhelm himself all at the same time. Harry wants to be the one who will remind Zayn to breathe.

Harry thinks of how Zayn said, ‘You’ll get back into it,’ so easily, because he knew that Harry needed to hear it in that moment. It’s like he saw right through him and knew exactly what was missing all along, the puzzle piece too far under the couch to reach now in Harry's palm, if only he chooses to put it in its rightful place.

Digging his old guitar from the back of the closet brings back a flood of memories Harry pushes to the side for later, because now his fingers are throbbing and the melody has been stuck in his ear along with an annoying buzzing, so he has to play it to hear how it sounds all on its own, soft and simple, just strumming a few major chords to make it happy too.

Over the weekend, Harry writes down a few words too, all about coming home and running through their backyard, because Harry and Gemma couldn’t get enough of it when they moved out of the apartment and into their house. He writes it all down, about coming home and how he wishes he wouldn't forget to call back as many times as he has, and thinks of Zayn as he does, of his wide eyes and his tongue stuck between his teeth, the freckles on all the corners of his face.

For how many romantic comedies Harry’s watched and rewatched, sticking to his old time favorites with nothing but happy endings and sappy kisses in the rain, Harry doesn’t know why he can’t be like one of those characters, knowing exactly what to say and how to say it in the moments that count. Harry’s just as much of a hopeless romantic as all of them, flinging himself into relationships with gusto and all the wind in his sails, so he doesn’t understand why the wind only ever propels him forwards, why it’s always towards people that don't make his heart flutter like they do his sails. Maybe for all the movies, his great love was actually sitting opposite him on the train to San Francisco, but this time, he wasn’t supposed to jump or fall or flutter. The time stopped and Harry paid attention, he just hopes he’s doing the right thing. Maybe the time _isn’t_ always right.

Before he falls asleep, Harry writes an email without an address, just a short, _You were right, I’ll get back into it, I’ll get it back._

* * *

* * *


	2. I won't let my moods ruin this you'll see

The wind has been slowly picking up, bringing with it a warmth that wraps around Harry’s shoulders and slips underneath his frilly shirt, so thin, that it’s practically see-through. Harry’s had his shinier boots and pink-stoned ring on before he got around picking his top. He wanted to match them with a light pink shirt that’s been sitting untouched in his closet for far too long, something to contrast the leather of the boots. The breeze, however pleasantly brushing over his skin, as he walks with his shoulder gently bumping Louis with every second step, whips his hair in front of his eyes in a tangled mess of curls he doesn’t know where to begin to untangle.

Whining, he stops walking and huffs out a desperate, “Help me,” that’s met with the expected snort and soft laugh, but soon, thin fingers are pulling the strands apart and he can see again. He winces when Nym pulls a knot from the zipper of his bomber jacket.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’d ever survive without me,” Nymeria says with a dry chuckle, chastising Harry with her stern look, but she doesn’t mean it like _that_ , even if it’s true. “Stop it, Louis,” she kicks at him, “You’re gonna make me pull his hair out and god knows he needs every last one.”

“Hey,” Harry drawls, less offended than he should be. “Can you give her a moment?”

“ _No_.” Louis crosses his arms over his chest as if he’s standing up for the fact he should be able to touch his girlfriend whenever he wants, but he stay still for once, just frowns at Harry as the three of them wait for Nymeria to set Harry’s hair free.

“You should get this taken care of soon, babe.”

“And she means cut it all off, by the way.”

“Not in front of the hair,” Harry says as he straightens up, his hair back where it belongs, hanging neatly over his shoulder, no longer in sweeps of curls he definitely did not spend time wrapping around finger in front of the mirror. Sometimes Harry wonder who he’s trying to impress. It’s the longest he’s had it and it might be getting out of control, twisting in knots he refuses to cut, Harry will admit that, but he loves it. Jeff hasn’t mentioned anything about getting it shorter, so Harry’s going to enjoy it while it lasts.

He isn’t ashamed to admit it’s become his security blanket, like a little victory to come out of it all - long hair, as simple as it sounds. But it’s what he has now; trains, hair and a recording studio, even if the couches around Jeff’s chair are used more often than the padded microphone in the booth. But that’s something too, just being there, having his fingertips pressed against the dull cut of strings. At least he doesn’t get blisters anymore.

“I swear, I don’t know why I keep the two of you around.”

“Because you love us,” Louis says, sidling up next to Nymeria with an arm around her waist. She snorts and shoves him, but doesn’t complain when Louis brushes his fingers through the easy waves of her hair. Nym doesn’t let anyone do that, so even her kick at Louis’ ass isn’t convincing. “And _you_ don’t want to live without _us_.”

“How about we test this theory?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” It’s not threatening like Louis’ usual remarks are, like he usually talks to Harry and just about everyone else, because it’s no secret Louis loves to fight, but his voice always loses some of its edge when he talks to her. It’s sickeningly sweet, both Nymeria and Harry agree.

Harry keeps walking when they stop to kiss. He barely manages to not sneak a glance back at them. The way Louis holds her tightly and Nymeria leans her head down just for that inch that Louis wouldn’t admit separates them, makes something wild unfurl in Harry’s gut that climbs up in his insides until he’s either a gooey mush or a sad excuse for a friend, because he’s pretty sure he can taste jealousy on his tongue.

It’s not of either of them, Harry at least knows that, but the fact it’s been harder and harder to look at them look at each other, to see the wrinkles around Louis’ eyes crease before he leans in, doesn’t make Harry feel any better either. But Harry knows it’s nothing serious, even when he feels like he’s drowning on his own spit and clearing his throat doesn’t do anything to _make it go away_ , that it’s just because he’s been convicted to his new resolve. It’s a stupid resolve, he hates it, Harry hates it more than he thinks he’s hated anything before, because he doesn’t understand who it hurts to have a little fun at least. Even if it’s never just that, never as simple.

 _Try keeping it in your pants for a while_. That’s what it is. Because everyone thinks Harry falls for people with his dick first, which is just an embarrassing over-exaggeration completely out of proportion with the truth, except for how Harry is starting to see it. Maybe. Not that he’d say that out loud. _It’ll be good for you_. It feels _good_ though, the way eyes leave a burning trail over the dip of his back, how a simple text of a time, a place and a question mark always made him smile. Feeling wanted and liked isn’t bad. Even if that’s the most he gets, usually without even a ‘what are you doing?’ It isn’t bad. But maybe that’s not the point.

Maybe it’s good that he’s slowing down. Maybe it’s what he needs right now, at this time and place. No questions marks.

As soon as Harry opens the old doors, the sounds from inside wash over him in a wave of stale beer and bad breath, hotter inside than the night air ever is this early in April. He hasn’t been to Casey’s in weeks, because Harry’s been busy for the first time in years, meeting with other writers and Jeff, even stepping into the recording booth again with wobbly knees and his voice breaking on every other note he had to sing. But he stood there and every crack was recorded, permanently on a tape Harry has been playing on repeat to find all the things he has to fix. By the second listen, he wanted to scratch the entire song, but since Gemma has heard it, tentatively playing it for her one night over the phone with tears in his eyes as she gasped, because she knew without an explanation, _of course she did_ , that every note and every word was for her, Harry can’t just start over again, throw it away like he usually would. Even Samantha had a listen when Gemma strolled her over the next morning. She burped ten seconds in, but Harry didn’t take it as a bad criticism.

So it’s been weeks without any nights out on the town to listen to other’s sing their songs, because Harry has always been afraid of their melodies digging so deep into his brain that he’ll think they’re his own. That’s one of the things he didn’t do from the list, the short four-fingers-long list. He took long walks alone until he ended up in front of someone’s house, ringing the doorbell and asking if they wanted some company. Harry has started on a couple books, but he didn’t get far with them. It was good, what he needed, something to start the process. It’s kept him busy enough to not stray towards a smile or a wink.

Niall managed it though, said he didn’t care if Harry made one of his songs famous enough to play on the radio, because the money from the lawsuit could definitely do them some good now that they had an infinite amount of diapers to buy. Harry laughed and promised he’d be there, so he is, standing at the door until he feels a hand nudge him at the small of his back that means Louis and Nymeria have managed to separate themselves.

He’s doing his best.

“Where is he?” Louis asks, coming to stand next to Harry with his hands on his hips, like he’s on a mission. And he probably is.

“He’s probably already backstage.”

“Ah shit, I wanted to freak him out before he goes up there.” Louis’ stance deflates and thankfully, Nymeria smacks him at the back of his head, so Harry doesn’t have to.

The bar is invisible from the door, people lined up from one end to the other, their hands in the air, flagging down the bartenders to get a refill on their drinks. Usually, they have a special on anything brewed on gig nights, which always turns into a mess of accented shouts and drinking one another under the table in the Irish pub that’s become their own during the freshman year of Harry’s partial absence - the Plough away from the Plough - when Louis met Niall and replaced Harry for the temporary job of his best friend. It’s worked out in the end, what with Gemma falling for Niall’s easy charm he has to admit drew him in as well. Harry’s never met a person that didn’t like Niall and even if the initial idea of his sister doing anything with anyone Harry’s heard talking about his sex life with made him want to drown in bleach, he’s okay with it now. Especially since the moment Niall came out of the hospital room holding the tiniest baby wrapped up in a pastel pink blanket, whispering, “She’s absolutely perfect,” with big damp eyes, had crawled by Harry in a longer stretch of time than it should have.

Harry had his own private moment with his niece, brushing a knuckle gently over her chubby cheek as she stared at him with her blue eyes that are the only thing on her that aren’t a perfect copy of Gemma. It wasn’t until he felt time was going to rush to catch up with him that Harry remembered the last time he felt lost in time. He had to close his eyes at the memory of it, but everyone thought he was just overwhelmed by little Samantha. He was, he still is, but that wasn’t it.

He’s following after Louis and Nymeria to get to the booth Niall had reserved for them, close, so they can see all of the stage, but far enough to keep himself focused on the crowd and not their loud screams of encouragement or Louis’ piercing whistle between songs.

“Do you miss it?” Nymeria asks once they’ve sat down, Harry on one side and them on the other. After a few drinks, he’s sure he’ll want to squeeze in next to them. He’ll pretend it’s to annoy Louis and not to feel another person’s warmth.

It’s a loaded question if Harry’s ever heard one, because _of course_ , every day, more during the night when Harry lets himself remember how it used to be, how his heart would thump in his chest, beating in time with the drums he felt underneath his feet like aftershocks of an earthquake. It’s easier now, knowing he might get to stand on top of the world again. It’s easier to think about it now.

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug and avoids the soft look Nym is sending him, playing it off as if it didn’t get worse before it’s just started to get better. Like she doesn’t already know and is only asking, because of how his eyes light up a little every time he thinks about it. “Sometimes I do.”

“Not for long,” Louis slaps his arm from across the table and Nymeria laughs with it. “Right? Before you know it, you’re gonna he headlining festivals and all that.”

They don’t talk about it, it’s not something they ever do, because Nym knows Harry would rather crawl into a hole than hear the words ‘once famous’ ever again. He wants it to be in the present or not at all. He won’t take anything less. So she usually pats his back and sticks to general questions about his day. But not since he’s told them about the song, about recording again, about writing. She’s going gentle on him though, sending Harry a look over the table, her brown eyes soft.

“Right, yeah. Exactly.” Harry makes sure to keep his smile as wide as he can, because he’s talked it over with Jeff and they both agree Harry should start smaller this time, intimate gigs with only a handful of the fans that have stuck around, so he doesn’t get overwhelmed by it. Even if the fact the fans might not have stayed is another cause for Harry to fall asleep only when he’s two hours past being so exhausted he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. It’s getting better, but it’s still not good enough. “But tonight’s Niall’s night,” he tries to steer the conversation away from himself and towards the antsy crowd that’s gathered in front of the stage. As sweaty as they are drunk, the people keep swaying back and forth between the toilets, the outside to smoke another cigarette and the stage, clapping furiously every time a song ends. “What song is he opening with?”

“Ah.” Nymeria goes a little cross-eyed, because it’s her favorite at the moment and that doesn’t make Harry feel bad about himself, it doesn’t. “ _This Town_.”

“Why do I get the feeling,” Louis starts as the waiter sets their drinks down on their table, the usual pitcher and empty pints, “That you’d leave me for Niall if you had the chance?”

“Because I would?”

Harry snorts into his hand and whines when he feels Louis kick him under the table. “Kick her, not me.”

“She’d kick me back.”

“Good.”

“Have you heard from Mr. Mystery yet?” Nym nudges his foot with hers while Louis is busy pouring them the beer.

Harry frowns and blushes. He wants to hide his face behind his hands. “He’s not mysterious.”

“How do you know?” She raises an eyebrow. It’s all Harry needs to relent.

“No.” The taste on his tongue is turning bitter. “Nothing yet.” Harry would be lying if he said he hasn’t been waiting for an email to ping on his phone. And he’d be lying if he doesn’t refresh his feed twice every morning. So instead, he huffs and slumps back in his seat. It doesn’t matter anyway.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking it slow,” Nym reminds him, again, over and over when Harry whines and pouts and says he should’ve gotten something by now, a sign, an email, a run-in on the street. He thought all he needed to do was wait.

“I know,” he whines now too. All he does these days is whine. That, and play around with his guitar. It needed to be dusted off, but it works just fine, even after all this time.

Louis flips them both off for not including him in the five second conversation and after begrudgingly pouring them all pint-fulls of beer, he doesn’t hand them their glasses like he usually does. Nymeria is laughing into Louis’ collar as Harry tries to collect himself, but then the lights spring up to the ceiling and down on the empty stage right as Niall walks out from the back with a big grin and his guitar strapped tightly over his chest.

“Hello, beautiful bastards,” Niall shouts into the mic and the crowd shouts back. They all know Niall the Bartender, but not many have seen Niall the Singer. It’s his first time on stage after Sammy was born and it shows, at least to Harry it does. Niall’s happy like he always is, excited to start strumming, but his thumb is digging into the neck of the guitar, which means he’s nervous too and wants to bite at his cuticle, but not in front of so many people. He’s settling on scratching at the wood instead. “This first song is very special to me. It’s dedicated to the love of my life.” Nymeria coos at that and Louis boos quietly enough for Niall not to hear. “I hope you all like it.”

It starts with soft hums of harmonies from the guitar, Niall’s fingers moving over the strings like he was made for playing guitar, and then he starts to sing and every person in the pub stops what they’re doing to listen to the song Niall wrote for Gemma.

Harry has to take a sip of his beer to swallow down the thought of how a crowd of slightly tipsy people would listen to _his_ song, if he’ll ever be finished tweaking it. If they would go still too, sway with the beat and sing along by the second chorus, echoing his words back to him in a sound wave that washes Niall’s eyes with wetness. Harry’s always wondered if his song has ever made someone’s time stop.

Before Niall can strum the last chord, Harry and everyone else in the pub is on their feet, clapping and shrieking the highest notes they could possibly make, in a staggering contrast to the low and easy notes of the song. Even Louis whistles wildly with the fingers of one hand pressed against his lips and the other in the air. Harry wants that again, the sound that follows the end of a song.

“Alright, alright, I see that got you going,” Niall laughs happily into the microphone, retuning his guitar as they all look up at him and listen, eat right out of his palm. “The next song was also written for the missus, but I don’t think her brother will like this one.”

Harry groans and sinks into the booth, because _no_ , he does _not_ appreciate Niall singing about Gemma and her ‘slow hands’. The first time Harry heard it, he wanted to bury himself under six feet of dirt and Niall right along with him. Gemma, of course, laughed and called him a baby, and then proceeded to explain how she was a woman with needs. Harry nearly barfed.

So instead of listening to this one or Louis’ idea of what exactly this song was inspired by in greater detail than Harry wants to ever think about, he excuses himself to Nymeria with a quick glance and a flick to Louis forehead. He hears, “Fucker,” right as he disappears into the crowd.

Everyone is even sweatier than Harry had first thought, so by the time he walks through the humid accumulating above their heads, the thin shirt he has on is sticking to his torso in all the wrong ways, but since it makes the butterfly on his stomach visible to anyone who trails their eyes over him, Harry doesn’t exactly mind. Even if the bomber sits heavy on his shoulders.

Washing his hands in front of the mirror, Harry knows he looks good, that he was made for walking on stage and dragging the mic stand after him, putting it between his legs and holding on to it with his thighs. Harry knows how he looks when he puts on a show, just like he did when he covered songs that he couldn’t exactly relate to or sung the ones that no one really liked but still listened to, because they were waiting to get to the good part, when he dragged a stool on stage too and sat down, so he could calm his breathing for the song that made him what he once was.

So maybe he takes three steps away from the mirror, still blocking out the music that wriggles its way into the toilets, and watches his reflection as he cocks his hip out and puts his hands on his waist. No one can blame him for wanting it, crawling on his knees  after it, more desperate for it than anything else. And no one can blame him for wanting someone to press up again his back, either. Just like they can’t blame him for wanting to dig his fingers into someone else’s waist. Harry snorts at the image of himself and then barely has time to skip back to the running tap to finish washing his hands as the door opens and someone joins him in the fairly clean bathroom for a pub on a Friday night.

As he presses his palms together under the water, Harry feels it, the _tick tick tick_ of time crawling up his spine and into his hair, twirling a strand around its finger to make him look up from his hands and to the figure standing behind him.

“Zayn?”

“If it isn’t the famous Harry Styles,” the words are slipping past Zayn’s lips as he’s walking towards Harry and hugging him like an old friend he hasn’t seen in years. Technically, it’s only been months, and they’re not really friends, more of acquaintances if even that. They happen to know each other’s names, coincidentally know some details, just an accident that Harry still remembers how Zayn’s lips look like pursed into an easy kiss. Or maybe it’s not that at all. With hands sneaking around his back, Harry isn’t going to argue with himself. But Harry’s wondered what they are for too long to not stutter on the inhale as he wraps his arms around Zayn and breathes him in. “Your hair’s longer,” Zayn mumbles into Harry’s shoulder, because their hug stretches over old friends to _I can’t believe I’m seeing you again_ and then into something quiet and subdued that sits on top of Harry’s chest _._ It touches _I never want to let_ _go_ right as Zayn loosens his grip and takes a step back.

“You have a beard,” Harry counters, looking over Zayn’s eyes and finding only a couple of freckles he remembers seeing last time, the rest lost under the scruff on his cheeks and chin. He looks different now, not as young maybe, but even more beautiful if it’s possible. “And - And you’re here.”

Zayn chuckles and scratches at the back of his neck, the motion familiar, but so foreign Harry bites his lip as he waits for him to look up again. “Yeah, out of all places, we run into each other at Casey’s, huh?”

“You come here often?”

“Lately, yeah,” Zayn explains with a casual shrug. “It’s close to Liam’s new place, so…”

The unsaid words hang between them, just like the name _Liam_ does, right there, all six foot four of him - or at least that’s what Harry imagines when he hears it, like there’s suddenly not enough room in the bathroom for three people.

“Oh, that’s, you know, that’s good.” His voice trails up at the end and they both end up laughing at the tangible awkwardness between them, but it has a sour aftertaste, because Harry wants to sit down with Zayn and ask him how that Thanksgiving dinner went. Finally know what his family is like, loud or mismatched like Harry’s, if he has a sister or a brother, if his parents are still together or divorced. Five months later and Harry still wants to know what Zayn tastes like right before he falls asleep. But instead of all that, instead of standing in this bathroom longer than they have to, Harry blurts out, “I wrote a song,” because he thinks Zayn would want to know.

“You did?” Zayn’s eyes go wide with it, his smile stretching until it reaches his earlobes and then he’s hugging Harry again, moving them both back by a step. Harry thinks he feels the sink against his back, but he can’t say anything except, “Yeah, finally.”

“See, I told you.” Zayn backing away again, but he stays closer this time. The cologne Zayn's wearing is lingering between them. “I told you you’d do it.”

“I guess you did, yeah.” Harry doesn’t mention how it was all Zayn, because he’s hearing strings of notes again, a sequence so simple, no more than three keys on the piano and something else, almost a sort of assembly of sounds following wherever the melody goes, like pollen flying with the wind, up and down and all around, like the sand and the sea, playing with each other as the tide comes in. It matches the ‘Only angel’ Harry has scribbled on top the first page in his notebook. “Do you, um –” There’s that feeling again, like he’s going to ask too much and embarrass himself, but Harry pushes past it this time, with his head through the wall and says, “Do you want to hear it?” because he’s been going slow, Harry’s has been pacing himself, not jumping into anything. This is just a nudge. Barely that.

Zayn smiles quickly, just a flash of it catching Harry’s eyes before he’s looking down at the stained floor, nodding. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

“Really?” Harry can’t hide it, he didn’t think Zayn would say yes.

“Of course, Harry.” This time, when Zayn looks back up at him and Harry can’t decipher what the look in his eyes means, he makes it up, thinks it’s either genuine interest or something along the lines of liking Harry enough to indulge him, because it’s obvious how much it would mean to him. Harry decides on the mixture of both. “Let’s hear it,” Zayn says with a sure nod as he clasps his hands behind his back and watches Harry expectantly.

“Um, I don’t have it on me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s just,” Harry drawls. “My manager’s a bit paranoid about these things, so there’s only one copy of it. In my apartment. It’s a tape,” Harry adds, because that part is just as important. They record it and produce it with the best equipment they have, but then they put it on a tape, the most physical thing they could find. Harry actually loves the idea, but then him and his ancient soul would, that’s what Gemma told him, thinking it was a jab when it just made Harry genuinely thank her.

Zayn hums and pats at something in his pocket, a phone or a wallet maybe. Harry wants him to know that he doesn’t have to, that it was just an offer he can easily decline or make a promise for next time that Harry will definitely hold him to, but then he’s nodding, first slow and unsure, and then fast, “Okay, yeah, let’s go.”

“How’s your book coming?” Harry asks once they’re far enough from the pub that he can’t hear Niall’s voice anymore, crawling behind them as they head north. He hears Zayn laugh, but Harry doesn’t turn to see it. It might be months since the last time, but the lines around Zayn’s mouth, mirroring the ones around his eyes like the smile is connecting those dots sprinkled on his skin, and the simple thought of his tongue being anywhere near his teeth, is enough for Harry to keep his eyes in front of himself and smile at the image in his memory.

“It’s not. Coming,” Zayn laughs dryly. “I’ve shelved it for now.”

“No,” Harry drawls with a pout, like he's personally invested, even though he is a little, like he knows what the book is about, even though he wants to.

“I mean,” Zayn scratches at the back of his neck as they wait for the car to pass them so they can run over to the other side of the street. “I sit down and read it sometimes and I like it,” his nose scrunches up as if he isn’t really sure of that. “But then as soon as I try to write something new, I just, I can’t think of what to say.”

“Like there’s nothing left to say?” Harry suggests, because he’s been there, exactly in the same place Zayn is. Like you're standing on top of the mountain and something’s obscuring the view, taking a step forward for every two you step back, wondering how you got there in the first place. Reaching out the tips of your fingers for it, only to touch nothing, waving through the air until you don’t know whether it’s a hello or goodbye.

“You did it though,” Zayn says instead of answering. He looks at Harry with his lip between his teeth, incisors digging into the pink flesh. “How many have you written?”

“In my head or?” Harry laughs. He can laugh about it now, but he would’ve cried just a few months ago. “A couple, just the one is recorded, but, I think it’s a good start.”

“I’m sure it is.” There’s that decisiveness, Zayn being sure as anything in what Harry is capable of when even Harry isn’t convinced anymore. “Is it just you and a guitar or an entire band? Come on, tell me everything.”

“There’s really not much to tell,” Harry starts, careful as ever, because he doesn’t want to oversell it. “I actually came up with the melody that day,” he doesn’t say which day, because they both know, that day on the train, when they met and Harry fell in love with Zayn, because apparently that’s something Harry does faster than anyone else, as easy as falling over his own feet. “Played some of it on my guitar and recorded it on my phone. Then I wrote down a couple of words and… It’s still rough around the edges, so, go easy on me.”

“I’m gonna tell you it’s amazing either way, you know.”

“Hey,” Harry drawls, smacking Zayn’s shoulder only barely, because he catches himself with his hand halfway there and then loses momentum as he tries to stop. “It’s decent.”

“Mhm,” Zayn hums and sidesteps away from Harry, probably afraid of getting smacked again. “I’m sure it is. What’s it about?”

 _Technically, you_. It doesn’t sound like it, but every note and word was written with Zayn in mind, somehow creeping into Harry’s thoughts even as he stood in the recording booth with the plush headphones on his head. “My sister, Gemma.” The look Zayn gives him almost knocks Harry over. “Yeah, she’s inspired a couple of songs actually.”

“Oh?”

Harry groans. He wants to groan into the void if Niall will never sing Slow Hands ever again or at least until Harry’s breathing. “You know the blonde guy singing tonight at Casey’s?” Zayn nods, so Harry grits, “Well, his songs were also inspired by my sister,” through his teeth, because he doesn’t want to think about it.

“He’s dating your sister?”

“Sort of married to her, actually. Also, he’s the father of my niece.” Zayn laughs at that, looks at Harry with wide eyes so Harry nods at him with an, ‘I know’ look of his own. “Sammy is the most perfect thing in the world though, so he’s alright. Have I mentioned he’s my best friend?”

“No,” Zayn says, shaking his head with a laugh. Harry knows it’s a lot to wrap his head around. He needed a moment too. “You’ve got a big family, huh?”

“Just my sister, my mom and me, but we have a lot of honorary members. What about you?” Harry sees an opportunity and he takes it. “Any siblings your best friends might date?”

Zayn sighs. “Too many,” he says, almost tiredly. “I’ve got three sisters and they’re all dating right now, which is a nightmare, because the youngest is fifteen… But not my friends, so at least there's that.”

“And you don’t like her boyfriend?” Harry jokes, because the face Zayn is making is hilarious.

“I don’t like any of their boyfriends, but,” Zayn sighs again, slips his hands into his leather jacket. Harry is happy to know it’s still around. “Safaa found a decent one, so I can’t complain.”

They round another corner and walk ten steps down the street when Harry stops them. “This is me,” he says with a shrug, because he’s suddenly nervous about this whole thing, but there’s no way he’s backing out of it now. Zayn is still here, looking expectantly at him and all Harry can think about is what he’ll look like under proper lighting that’s stronger than street lamps but softer than the neon of the bathroom.

Harry doesn’t know how he got here, walking Zayn up the steps of the building where his apartment is on the third floor, right on top, every marble stair they climb echoing around the quiet hallway until he’s unlocking  his door and taking off his boots along with Zayn. He has to remind himself, as he unlocks his front door, that this isn’t anything, that Zayn is just here to listen to the song. Harry has to remind himself he’s giving time time.

“So this is where the famous Harry Styles lives, huh?” Zayn asks, looking around the living room. Harry wonders what he sees, if he notices the candles on the coffee table or the rug leading down the hallway to his right where Harry’s bedroom and bathroom are, the record collection stacked on shelves like books. Maybe Zayn catalogues the lack of books besides the few Harry keeps on the far left shelf, all only half read.

Harry’s looking for any stray socks or empty coffee cups he might’ve left around, but besides the messy array of blankets and pillows on his couch that clearly say he’s been spending most of his nights watching movies and not partying like a wild animal that Zayn might expect, nothing seems out of place.  “I guess it is.” He clears his throat. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks, because he needs a moment to collect himself before he can wrap his head around the fact Zayn is standing in his living room in just his blue socks.

“I’d love some wine if you have it?” Zayn asks over his shoulder, already flipping through Harry’s records.

“White okay?”

“Perfect.”

So Harry busies himself with opening the bottle without breaking the cork in the middle like he usually does, because he’s never known how not to be clumsy. He pours them each a glass and then decides to bring the bottle with him as well, since he’s pretty sure one glass isn’t going to be enough to calm his nerves.

When Harry walks back to the living room, Zayn is sitting on the floor with his hands behind his back, leaning against them as he looks up at the records and the old player Harry keeps in the middle of it all. “Find anything you like?”

“Hmm?” Zayn turns around, thanks Harry when he gives him his glass. “Oh yeah, there’s some amazing stuff you have, like Sade? Or the Pink Floyd, I love that record.”

“That’s probably one of my favorite albums,” Harry confesses quietly, blushing at Zayn’s wide grin, because as a musician, he’s always thought that’s a big part of a person, the album that makes you feel like you're home wherever you listen to it. Harry wouldn’t know how to go about picking his favorite song though. “I even have the prism tattooed on my bicep.” Young and stupid, but even then Harry couldn’t help himself, carrying pieces of himself on his sleeve.

“No you don’t,” Zayn says with an air of disbelief, taking off his jacket in a hurry that Harry doesn’t follow until he’s rolling up the sleeve of his white t-shirt and pointing to a square bit of skin where the same prism is inked. Without saying a word or so much as blinking, Harry’s shucking off his bomber and pressing the sleeve of his own flimsy shirt onto his skin, hanging it above his head so Zayn sees he has the same one too through the thin material. “No way,” Zayn breathes out.

Harry thinks Zayn's going to lean forward to touch his fingers to it, making sure it’s really there, but then Harry says, “What are the odds, huh?” to defuse the situation unraveling in his head. They’re supposed to be listening to Harry’s song, not compare their tattoos to see if any of the others match. Letting Zayn’s eyes trail over the rest of them for a second, he breaks the moment with a heavy, “So.”

“So,” Zayn repeats, licking his lips and bringing his eyes up to Harry’s face again. “The song?”

“You ready?”

“Are you nervous?” Zayn asks around a sip as Harry bends over to rewind it to the beginning before he’s sitting down on the floor just like Zayn. “Not about me hearing it, but like, making songs again, performing them one day.”

It’s a good question, they all are, because Harry _is_ nervous, but right now, it’s because Zayn’s about to hear it, not because maybe one day, down the road, when he has enough material, Harry will have to perform it in front of people. “That’s the good, fun part of doing this,” he waves at his stereo, because that’s the part Harry is excited about. “Being on stage is… it’s…” Harry suspends his thought in mid air. And although this isn’t any less exciting, it’s the reason he takes another sip before he presses play and closes his eyes, waits for the guitar to intro the song.

He hears a quiet hum after three strums of guitar that Harry had to learn to play again after so many months, and his stomach sinks all on its own. Zayn doesn’t say anything as they listen to Harry sing the words he strung together in a haze of memories and feelings, foreign emotions mixing with familial ones, Gemma at the front of his mind as Zayn drifted somewhere in the background, his traces clearly in the song. Harry wonders if he hears it, his name between the notes and the melody, harmonizing with Harry’s voice when it breaks and cracks, dips and springs to life by the second chorus and then again, right as the tempo slows down and Harry fades out into silence, something he’s still not sure about.

“It still needs a lot of work,” he starts as soon as the music fades and the tape ends with a _clunk_. “Probably another layer of harmony and the editing isn’t the best yet, but.” Harry cuts himself off before he rambles down a spiral of nerves and knuckle biting, giving himself an ulcer in the next five seconds if Zayn doesn’t say anything.

Because he’s too quiet, sitting there with a look on his face Harry is too scared to see, until he hears, “It’s good,” and he turns his head to see Zayn’s smiling at him, as wide as he’s ever seen him. “It’s really good.”

“Yeah?” Harry mumbles, because he needs the re-affirmance too, just like everybody else does, as if the first time doesn’t count and the more times he hears it, the more he’ll believe it, never quite reaching that full percentage though, maybe not ever again.

But when Zayn huffs out a, “Yeah, Harry, are you kidding?” Harry feels himself getting there. “It’s amazing.”

“I mean, I like it, I just,” he shrugs, “I can never tell if anyone else is gonna like it too.” That was one of his problems at first, writing songs he thought were decent if not properly good and then getting shut down every time he sent one over to Jeff, or anyone else, everyone else. _It’s good, but you can do better._ Harry didn’t think he could.

“I love it,” Zayn nods at him, pulling himself up to his knees and walking over to where Harry is sitting. He falls on top of him, arms around Harry’s middle and cheek pressed against Harry’s. “I could hear it, I think it's how you sing ‘sweet creature,’ I could tell it’s for someone close to you,” he’s saying right next to Harry’s ear. Zayn’s arms are tight around him and he’s barely holding himself up, Harry supporting more than half of his weight, which isn’t anything at all, but it nearly collapses him when Zayn murmurs, “I really love it,” closer to Harry’s neck.

So it’s only logical that Harry leans back just enough to press his lips against Zayn’s cheek like Zayn did at the train station all those months ago, when Harry was so sure he was never going to see Zayn again, when he was wrong. Just like then, Harry has to make sure that Zayn’s really here, his cheek soft underneath Harry’s lips and rough when he trails his lips over his scruff as well, leaning back slowly. “That means-” he breathes out, his eyes closing. “Thank you.”

Harry kisses the juncture of Zayn’s jaw as he’s leaning fully away from him, barely touching his lips to the sharp angle. It’s how friends kiss, soft and sweet, the gesture innocent enough, but Harry knows he isn’t doing it as a friend. He can’t help himself, so he tries to tell Zayn this way, the _I want you to be the first to hear all of my songs, because even if they aren’t about you, they are you, you’re them, I’m writing them_ for _you, because I thought I couldn’t but you didn’t doubt me._ Harry’s never wanted to say so much with a kiss, with his lips lingering close to Zayn’s neck, waiting for him to say something back. Harry might fall fast, he might think things are getting serious when they’re unraveling already. He might be the one to always say ‘I love you’ first, always too soon, missing the timing like with most of his jokes, but he’s never wanted to say _that_ to someone before, not as much or with those words. Harry doesn’t know what to do when he sits back on his haunches and Zayn’s hands slide down from his back to his own sides, limp and lifeless now that it’s his turn, he just knows he doesn’t want to be the only one talking.

So he sighs, because he should try using his words too, just come out and say, ‘I like you, the song is for you, do you mind?’ and prepare for the reaction he’s going to get, because when he looks up at Zayn, the words hanging on the tip of his tongue like a heavy ball of cotton, halfway out of his mouth, Zayn’s lips twitch at the corners, the soft thing that draws lines around his eyes and makes Harry’s heart beat in his ears. But Harry can’t make himself say it, because while that twitch might turn into a smile, it might also tell Harry to back off, that it’s not what Zayn wants, not right now, so soon.

Harry swallows the words and leans in instead, falling forwards with his eyes open and lips parted. They share a hot breath, their eyes following each other’s moves anxiously, the rise and fall of Harry’s chest, Zayn’s tongue licking over his lips right as Harry breathes out with the sight of it. He closes his eyes and leans in.

His lips gently moving with Harry’s at first, Zayn kisses like Harry thought he would, like he’s reading him for the first time, still unsure and careful if he’s doing it right, catching his teeth against Harry’s bottom lip but not yet biting. Just a touch of his tongue and a brush of a finger at Harry’s cheek, as if Harry’s this fragile thing Zayn needs to be gentle with, not use too much pressure or else Harry will break.

But he won’t, Harry can take more, he needs it, feels the heat rising in his chest. His hands are shaking with it, so he pulls Zayn closer by his t-shirt and runs his tongue against the seam of his lips, telling him again that this is it, this is what Harry’s been waiting for. Zayn must understand again, because he twists his hands into the hair at the back of Harry’s neck and deepens the kiss, licking into his mouth with a groan that sends a fire down Harry’s spine.

He’s dreamt of this, literally and less intensely, of how Zayn tastes, whether it’s honey or citrus or like the smoke that lingers in the air around him even if Harry hasn’t seen Zayn with a cigarette.  Now Harry knows the taste lingers there too, but it’s something more bitter than sugar but sweeter than lemon - he almost thinks of a tangerine, but he cuts himself off with a whine, because Zayn’s breaking them apart and he’s standing up, so Harry pouts up at him pathetically. He thought they were going to do this all night.

“Stop it,” Zayn chuckles and presses his fingers to his lips. That’s good, that’s what people do to feel the phantom remnants still tingling there. Zayn’s chasing the feeling of Harry and it’s with a stupid grin on his face and his other hand stretched out to Harry that he takes without another word. Zayn finds his other hand and twists both behind his own back. “You have pretty lips.”

Swooning a few feet into the air, Harry grins stupidly at Zayn his little freckle in his eyes and the way he touches his nose to Harry’s before he leans in to kiss him again, quick as he says, “Pretty and pink,” with a breath.

“Yours aren’t so bad either, you know?” Harry murmurs back, watching as Zayn’s nose scrunches up with a grin.

“Not so bad, huh?”

Harry hums and kisses his bottom lip. “Soft.”

“Do you want to-?” Zayn starts to say, his lips grazing over Harry’s.

It makes Harry hum around a soft laugh. But then he asks a tentative, “Bed?” in a rasp, because he can’t make his voice work anymore.

It’s one thing to have wild daydreams about this, of Zayn’s fingers running down the bumps of his spine and his nails digging into the flesh of his thighs, but it’s another to have it happen, to feel his hot breath against his skin as Zayn says, “Yeah,” shakily, like he might just need this as much as Harry does.

Their next kiss isn’t gentle or slow, more like a stampede shaking their bones as they try to walk backwards and then forwards when Harry remembers where his bedroom is. Clothes are falling behind them as they move, t-shirts and lone socks they’ll have to look for in the morning, but don’t have any time to lose over them now. When Zayn bites Harry’s lip with a dirty smirk, Harry has to retaliate.

They stumble through the door and right as Zayn’s about to take another step, Harry takes the floor from beneath his feet with his hands under his thighs and a laugh Zayn eats up as soon as he catches his breath.

“You’re stronger than I thought,” Zayn pants against his mouth, trailing his lips all along Harry’s jaw, his arms twisted behind his neck.

“You’re lighter than I thought,” he jokes back, laughing again at the look on Zayn’s face and the sudden pinch at his shoulder. Harry would carry Zayn anywhere in the world if that meant he could always have him like this, but he doesn’t say that, because that might be too serious for this moment. It’s meant to me fun, light. He just digs his fingers into his thighs, so Zayn presses his hips against him, suppressing a whimper Harry still hears.

“Oh, yeah?” The look in Zayn’s eyes changes, shifts from light and playful to dark and intent, probably on something close to destroying Harry. Or at least making him fall apart until he doesn’t know where he begins and where he ends, so he can’t say anything back when Zayn practically growls, “I’ll show you,” and falls down on his feet, pulling on Harry’s hands before he even knows what’s happening.

Not that Harry cares in the slightest, because he’s lying on the bed now and Zayn is crawling up his body with his pupils blown black and the kind of smirk Harry wants to lick like melted ice-cream dripping over his fingers. He almost props his hands behind his head to just watch what Zayn does next, but Harry wants to _touch touch touch_ every single inch of Zayn he can reach, so he runs his fingers through his hair instead. It’s longer than the last time he saw it, long enough for Harry to get a nice grip right as Zayn settles his weight against Harry again, slotting their legs together.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Zayn remarks, but he doesn’t exactly move from his comfortable spot to give Harry any room to move either.

So Harry counters, “You too,” with a raised eyebrow and smile that he can’t hide. He’d love to play a game with Zayn, but Harry’s hands move to Zayn's hips all on their own, bringing him up higher so that he’s hovering right over Harry’s face. “We should definitely do something about that,” he says with a definitive wink and kisses Zayn, sweet and slow again, like they started, carefully parting his lips and softly humming against Zayn’s.

Zayn hums back, “Definitely,” and lets himself be rolled over so that Harry’s on top now.

Maybe they can be sloppy next time, messily stumbling into the shower or staying on the floor in the living room so they’ll have carpet burn on their backs and aching joints. Harry wants to see how long he can hold Zayn up like that, their hips meeting in the air or bumping against the wall to the beat of a song from the playlist Harry is bound to make tomorrow. But now they go slow, like it’s a sticky hot Sunday evening in the middle of August and they’ve spent all day in bed already, this just being an excerpt of them lazily rolling in the sheets. Zayn unbuttons Harry’s jeans and chuckles when he can’t pull them down as easily as he does his own.

“Your shirt is ridiculous.”

Harry gasps, leaning away from him. “Are you seriously insulting my outfit choices right now?” He makes a show of looking down between them. They’re both in just their underwear, clearly hard, pressing themselves into each other’s thighs to get some relief.

“I’m just saying, it’s rid-”

Harry shushes him with a kiss and a bite to his lip. When Zayn hums instead of retaliates, Harry lets his hands roam over the expanse of naked skin underneath him.

Zayn’s all broad shoulders and narrow hips, a tiny ass Harry can’t quite reach like this, so he rolls Zayn on his front, because he wants to start at the top of his neck now that he can, the tattoo there practically calling to be bitten and licked, and who is Harry to say no?

“What do you want to do?” Zayn asks, casually enough that it settles something in Harry. Although he feels his nerves bubbling up in his gut, it’s good to know Zayn’s settled into Harry’s bed so easily, that he’s maybe thinking of staying now that they're here. But Harry’s trying not to rush. It’s been a while though, so it might take him longer than it usually does.

Usually, Harry doesn’t think this hard, not with a someone so naked beneath him or hovering above him and breathing hotly into his neck. Harry doesn’t even think, just lets his hands roam and his hips roll and he’s good to go. But now he’s almost waiting for it, for the _tick tick tick_ to crawl up his spine and make him shiver.

He slips his hands over Zayn’s back, follows the line of goosebumps he raises and says, “Whatever you want.”

“By this point,” Zayn wiggles his hips and sighs as he lays his cheek against his forearms, “Anything.”

“Anything?” Harry’s going a little cross-eyed with the possibilities. He hooks his thumbs into the elastic of Zayn’s underwear and flicks it against his skin just enough to make a sound. “Does that mean–”

“It probably does,” Zayn cuts him off and then he’s taking all the fun away from Harry, because he starts taking his boxers off himself. Harry swats at his hands and finishes for him, takes his own off while he’s standing at the edge of the bed. But the possibilities are endless and Harry’s nervous again – he could lick all over Zayn skin, press his mouth against every juncture and dip, or walk his fingers over every slope, maybe leave a couple of blooming marks while he’s at it, if he can move his hands from Zayn’s hips anytime soon. “Harry?” Zayn asks quietly as Harry debates where to start.

But he doesn’t want to transfer his nerves onto Zayn or make him think this isn’t what Harry’s been waiting for, the entire night playing in front of him like his favorite movie. Now Harry can only keep his hopes up for the ending.

Harry finally runs his hands over Zayn’s sides, up and down, pressing his fingers against the flesh of his tiny ass. “Yes?” he asks slowly and hears his voice shake, uncertain in all the wrong places.

“Just…” Zayn starts to say, but lets the thought trail off as he gets himself up on his knees, chest still pressed against the mattress. Harry forgot that Zayn can see right through him like this, that maybe Zayn knows Harry’s scared of being too loud or too optimistic, afraid of being too _something_ , so he pushes where Harry is ready to pull back. “Yeah?” he asks simply over his shoulder, his eyes going soft around the edges again.

“Yeah,” Harry breathes out. He tries to breathe all of it out, the doubts and the worry, all of it except right here right now, because he can finally touch, not just imagine what Zayn would feel like. “Talk to me,” he adds quietly, as he stretches around him to get to his nightstand, because if Zayn’s willing to hold his hand, then Harry’s going to reach out and take it.

“Okay, yeah, yeah.” Zayn’s swaying his hips with the motion of Harry’s hands as he starts to move them down to the back of his thighs, inching his fingers towards the inside in a whisper of a touch that makes Zayn moan. “That feels,” Zayn swallows, “That feels good.”

Harry knows they both need more at this point. He can see Zayn is hard, his dick pressing against his lower stomach and Harry almost wants to flip him on his back to get his mouth on him as he leans on his haunches to look. He settles his priorities though, because Zayn won’t stop wiggling under his hands and Harry’s already leaking at the tip, but he doesn’t want to touch himself either, not yet.

“What about this?” The tiny hairs on Zayn’s thighs brush against his palms as he moves his hands up again, one on each cheek so he can spread him apart a little and see how Zayn reacts to it.

In a too coherent manner, Zayn murmurs, “That’s good too,” so Harry leans in to blow a light stream of air over Zayn’s taint. The mewl that leaves his lips is definitively less collected. “Mhm, that – that, yeah.”

Now that he thinks about it, Harry doesn’t want Zayn to talk, or at least not in sensible sentences like he is. Harry would much rather just listen to the sounds he makes, the ones pulled out of his throat that make his hips stutter and his fingers dig into the mattress, so he leans in even closer with just the tip of tongue, and makes a single line from his taint up to his rim and then higher up to the middle of Zayn’s back before he stops.

Harry hears Zayn sigh, feels him relaxing and sinking further into the bed with it, and he can’t help but smile. He kisses the small of Zayn’s back for it. They don’t talk much after that, both decidedly too busy to focus on anything else except Harry pressing his knuckle against the sensitive spot right below where he’s laying his tongue flat at Zayn's rim. He tries to follow Zayn's body as he moves forwards or pushes his hips back against his mouth, trailing his knuckle after his tongue and just teasing the tip of his finger in, because Zayn's starting to sound more desperate every time Harry bites the sensitive muscle even lightly.

They're both desperate with it, Zayn moaning every time Harry twists his wrist and presses his fingers deeper inside him, barely an inch, and Harry pants with the heat dripping through his veins as all he does is stare at his hand and his dick, practically twitching when Harry just thinks about touching himself.

“Harry, you have to-” Zayn stutters, trying to catch his breath. “You have to touch me.” But Harry wants to do a lot more than just touch at this point. He wants to start by making Zayn come once and then again, before he gets his mouth on him to hold him down as he trembles. Harry is getting himself dizzy with possibilities again, so he scissors his fingers one more time, before he flips Zayn on his back and nips at his neck.

Zayn growls something that Harry doesn't catch because he's also trailing his hands down Harry's chest in a rush that isn't nearly fast enough. When he gets his hand around Harry's dick, Harry exhales with it, closing his eyes and almost coming from having Zayn touching him like this, tight and steady, biting a bruise at his throat and hitching a leg over his waist.

Harry sneaks his hand over Zayn’s thigh, high up and around until he has his fingers pressed against Zayn’s taint again, brushing them over his balls as Zayn whimpers, “God, that - that feels good.” Zayn throws his head back, and Harry just stares for a second.

It turns from slow and gentle to hot and messy before they can hold themselves back or stop pushing their shaky hips into each other's hands, pushing as the other pulls. Zayn's the first to fall into it, sinking his teeth into his lip and gasping on a breath as he comes over Harry's hand, his thigh twitching against his waist, eyes closing with a muffled groan. It's a sight Harry's not going to forget any time soon, Zayn's messy hair and ridiculous smile as soon as he opens his eyes and lifts himself enough to kiss Harry with a quick pant.

“That was better than I thought it was going to be,” he says, trailing his mouth over Harry's neck. He picks up the rhythm of his hand again and laughs as Harry whines.

“What is that supposed to - to mean?” Harry trying his best to stay on point, but Zayn's licking his palm and then tightening his grip around him, so he can’t do much more than hold himself up and follow the movement with his hips.

Zayn smirks, leering and dirty, and Harry would do more than just gasp if he could when Zayn’s other hand slides down his back and stops right at his crack. “Are you gonna come?” Zayn's words are slow, his eyes dropping in a drawl of a blink.

“Yes, yeah,” Harry’s panting, right there, letting the heat from his gut spread over his body when Zayn's finger teases at his rim finally and he lets himself sink into it, hips stuttering as he comes hot over Zayn’s fist. He loses his strength until he's lying on top of Zayn, who's kissing the side of his head while he pulls him off a couple more times, because he’s a tease.

“I didn't mean anything by it.”

“Huh?” Harry's limbs are half liquid as he's slipping off to sleep, warm and comfortable right where he is, even if Zayn's probably having a hard time breathing under him.

“What I said before,” Zayn murmurs against his hair, his hands splayed over Harry’s back. “This was - It was -”

Harry kisses him instead of letting him finish, because _it was_. He rolls off of Zayn and sighs as he stretches his back. The thought of getting up anytime soon is less than appealing right now.

Zayn laughs, because of course he knows what Harry is thinking, and jumps out of bed. Harry wants to ask where he's going when Zayn must find the light switch in the hallway. There's the sound of a faucet running as Harry tries to stop smiling like an idiot, but he can't. And maybe he doesn't want to, because maybe Zayn's cleaning himself in the bathroom right now with a smile on his face as well, and the simple thought of that makes Harry’s stomach flutter.

He breathes out slowly and tells himself to take it easy.

Zayn comes tiptoeing back into the room with a wet towel in his hand and a small, barely there smile. “Hey, I found this.”

“Thank you.” Harry smiles back. Zayn messed with his hair, clearly put back into the shape it was before they rolled around on the bed. “I swear I was going to get up in a minute,” Harry lies when Zayn settles next to him with a laugh.

“I totally believe you.”

“Hey,” Harry drawls. “I was, I just needed a minute, that's all.”

“Been that long, huh?” Zayn asks casually, keeps it going back and forth between them, light as it seems to always be.

But it's not as casual when Harry laughs dryly, “Longer, probably.” His cheeks start to flare up, so he looks away, but then Zayn's saying, “Happy to help,” and Harry is swatting at him.

“It isn't funny, I've been _very_ busy.”

Zayn hums as he scratches at the back of his neck. Harry's getting familiar with his ticks, like when he runs his thumb over the ink on the back of his hand when he's thinking something over or this, going shy and quiet as he admits, “I've been pretty busy too lately.”

Harry smiles, because he knows what Zayn is trying to say. He sits up and leans over to kiss his cheek again. It’s probably Harry’s favorite inch of his skin, sharp but soft under his lips. He tries not to close his eyes as he does it, just let the second pass like the rest of them, but he can’t help the sigh that slips past his lips right as he leans back. It’s just a friendly thing to do, a thank you, maybe. A tiniest little souvenir for Zayn is he wants it. Harry needs someone to smack the back of his head.

“Give me a second,” he mumbles and slips out of the bed too. As quickly as he can, he runs to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Not as a pocket sized trinket, Harry wants to kiss Zayn again, and, blushing at his reflection before he runs back, he wants to make it nice, mouth minty fresh.

“What was that?” Zayn’s laughing at him from the bed, shaking his head. But his smile dips just by that much when Harry crawls on the bed and kisses him, tongue dipping just barely past his lips. “Mmm, toothpaste.”

“How is the teaching going?”

Zayn laughs at him when he lays himself back onto the bed with dopey smile. Harry doesn’t care. “It's not. Not yet.”

“You'll get there.” Zayn said that to him and it worked. Rolling over on his side, Harry hopes it works for Zayn too. He tries to be as determined as he can when he says it. “Just don't rush it.”

“Liam said I needed to push my limits.”

“Liam doesn't know what he's talking about,” Harry very nearly whines, because he doesn’t like this Liam already. Harry should be the one giving Zayn advice, just as a thank you, a way to repay him. If Zayn wants, he can call Harry in the middle of the night if he needs someone to listen or to talk with. But he doesn’t know how to say that casually. “If you don't feel comfortable then don't push anything.”

“I think I like your advice better,” Zayn’s musing, settling down next to Harry so both of their heads are on the pillows, almost sharing the same one. “I think I'm gonna take it.”

“You should.” Harry leans forward and kisses Zayn tentatively, just grazing Zayn's bottom lip. “I give the best advice.”

“Yeah, you're not so bad in general,” Zayn jokes, laughing as he kisses Harry back. He tastes like he's about to fall asleep any second, bumping their noses together lightly before he settles back on the pillow.

“I'm gonna take that as a compliment.” Harry can be stubborn when he wants to, just like Gemma and Anne, he can be insistent and brave. Wrapping his arm around Zayn's waist, he sighs and lets his mind drift. But the weight of the name is stuck at the front of his thoughts, so, biting his lips, he says, “Liam isn’t– I mean, he’s not your– Is he–?” as awkwardly as ever.

“Oh.” Zayn shuffles on top of him, but doesn’t let Harry see his face. “Liam is a friend, best friend, just - just a friend.” As Zayn stutters out, Harry feels himself settle with it, because it’s good to know he isn’t the only one flailing about this. “How have you been with the whole,” Zayn waves his hand around, “Receiver thing?”

Harry has to bite his lips to not grin. Thinking for a second, he says, “I’ve been - I _have_ been busy lately,” which is the truth, but, “so I haven’t really, you know, doing much of the… falling.”

“Oh,” Zayn says again, with a tone Harry isn’t sure he knows the meaning of. Maybe it’s underlined with surprise or shock, or maybe it’s something calmer, like realization that it _has_ been a long time since, well, since anything has happened. It’s been _too_ long. But it’s fine, Harry is fine with taking his time.

There has been a void, like a little hole somewhere in his chest, gaping when the sun dips down and a shower doesn’t do much to warm him like he wants it too, from the inside out. But he’s been filling it with other things, like Sammy and Gemma, random jam sessions with Niall when he shows up at the studio on the weekend. He’s had one lunch with Louis and Nym in the past few months, because when they left to go to the bathroom together and then came back after fifteen minutes with their shirts untucked and the buttons done the wrong way, askewed on their shoulders, Harry vowed to never, ever, go out with them alone. So it’s not like he’s been itching for a warm hand, Harry’s always needed more than that anyway - he guesses that’s his problem - but it _has_ been a long time and the heat of Zayn’s chest pressed against Harry’s side, shrinks that tiny tear by _just that much._

“I like your nipples,” Zayn murmurs against his shoulder then, his leg slipping between Harry’s. He grazes a finger over the one closest to him.

Harry gasps a tired laugh, “What?”

“Your nipples,” Zayn starts explaining, his voice low and quiet, both of them already on the edge of sleep. “I think I saw your nipples before I saw your face.” He smacks his lips together, pressing closer to Harry as he pulls the duvet up to their chests, hiding his apparently over exposed nipples. “On the train, that day. You didn’t leave much to the imagination with that sweater.”

“Oh,” Harry whispers, blushing crawling over his skin. “Well, thank you?”

Zayn hums as Harry sighs heavily down at his hair. “You’re welcome and thank you,” with a sigh of his own, Zayn whispers, “I like your nipples, they're my favorite” and Harry would laugh if he was still awake.

What feels like two dreams and at least seven hours later, his limbs loose and rested, no aches in his joints or spine, Harry stretches his arms over his head and blinks his eyes open.

The first thing he does is smile with the memory of last night, trickling to him in waves as he wakes up further. Harry knows what Zayn tastes like before he goes to sleep, how many sisters he has and that he likes to bite at Harry's throat before he comes. Or maybe he does, Harry wants to find out. There's a fluttering in Harry's stomach as he takes all of it in, the new knowledge and fresh memories he's never letting out of his sight, like the moon never stops following the Earth.

Still smiling he turns over slowly, ready to kiss Zayn to see what he tastes like in the morning as well, but the thought gets lost as Harry's sitting up in bed and looking towards the open bedroom door. There isn't a sound in his apartment besides his breathing. Zayn isn't in the kitchen making breakfast or taking a quick shower. And he’s clearly not in bed anymore. Harry runs his hand over the spot they were sleeping on just a couple hours ago, pulling Harry closer in his sleep and kicking him until Harry rolled over in his arms. That's the last thing Harry remembers, Zayn huffing against the back of his neck, before he fell back asleep, deep and pitch black.

Taking his hand away, Harry puts it back in his lap when he notices a post-it note. It’s the ones he keeps in the kitchen, of a green cactus with a yellow flower on top, usually only to write down his grocery list.

He's throwing himself on the piece of paper and reading it quickly, rolling over to hold it above his face as his stomach flutters again.

_Last night was fun. Call me sometime (213) 5567879 - Z xx_

* * *

Eyes closed and fingers tightly intertwined on his chest, Harry is trying to relax. He wants to sink into the cushions as he does a round of breathing exercises, shallow inhale and deep exhale, letting his energy circulate naturally in one fluid undulation, flowing freely through him. But it’s like someone’s sitting on his chest and pouring water down his nose while clamping his mouth shut with a strong hand, drowning him with his own breath. He fixes the pillow behind his head, crosses his legs at the ankles and does another round of breathing, following the movement of his chest with a whispered, “In and out.” This is the product of weeks spent sitting up writing in the middle of the night, because he comes up with rhymes in his sleep, between here and there. It’s the result of pacing the studio when the melody doesn’t sit right with him or with Jeff, the chorus not powerful enough, the verses unconnected to the point where the beginning and end of a song sounded like two different versions of one confusing melody for the first two weeks. He’s listening to the beat of his heart, following its rhythm, so Harry misses the beginning of his song.

His thoughts, bouncing around his head like it’s a trampoline, follow the notes that flood his living room until he’s getting up and rewinding it and starting it all over again. He lies back down, doesn’t think he’d be able to sit up straight, and puts himself in his previous position, all of his limbs crossed or twined to keep himself together at least physically.

This time, Harry doesn’t miss the languid drums leading into a melodic guitar that makes him close his eyes and stay still, let himself go enough to not press stop, but keep himself present to actually listen to it for the very first time. His voice comes in right after the guitar, maybe too soon, like he’s intruding into the lead that’s supposed to set the tone of the song he’s been working on for the last seven months. If he hears “When do you think you’ll be done?” one more time, Harry is quitting this whole thing and retiring to a be a sheep herder in Iceland. He swears it.

When he was asked all those years ago, what his song was about, whose heart he was asking for, Harry was honest at first, talking about the relationship that had more downs then ups, a break for every time the sun set and then yet another start as it rose the next day. Harry didn’t mention how he felt like he was crawling after scraps of something that wasn’t even there in the first place, or how he didn’t understand why he felt heartbroken when he was the one to leave that night, because ‘a little’ wasn’t nearly enough, never was for Harry. At first, he was honest, but when that started to get boring, he made up stories to keep everyone guessing, about friends and fiction, how he wanted to write something people related to when Harry didn’t even know if he related to it by the end.

But this song is different, because like the one for Gemma, he had one person in mind when he wrote it, walking through Harry’s dreams and waking him up, so Harry knew it wasn’t real, that Zayn wasn’t really there, running his knuckle underneath his eye and over the apple of his cheek. It’s the soundtrack to his dreams, it has been for longer than it’s been recorded on the tape, before he changed the key, because Jeff insisted on it, said it sounded too sad, too melancholy, like Harry was crying the lyrics more than singing them. He was when he first recorded it.

Because this song won’t change its meaning over time, lose the essence Harry wrote it with, the words he thinks of every time he looks at the post-it cactus stuck to his fridge with a _best sister in the world_ magnet that Gemma bought him for his birthday last year. He knows it’s not true, but he swears the paper is starting to fade, that the cactus isn’t as green. It’s beginning to fade along with Harry’s hope, because he still had it, after a couple of weeks went by and all he did was look at it, subconsciously memorizing the number. His glass was full, to the brink, but as time trickled by him and he still hadn’t called, the water started draining, down down down, until it was half empty. If Harry wanted to, he could call at any time, any one of the nights he wakes himself up by blinking blearily, wondering where he is. If he weren’t so set on taking his time, he could call.

The story behind this song isn’t real, the eyes the wrong color, lips more pink than red, chapped a little, but it doesn’t matter, because Harry knows what he wanted to say with it, the feelings he’s been drowning in for longer than he’s known how to swim. The song speaks to anyone who listens and knows even half of it, the lack of communication that is entirely his fault, two people getting barely by in halves and nearly close enoughs, dragging a past behind them that sticks to the soles of their feet rather than being tied to their wrists with ribbons in pretty bows. It’s sad and brokenhearted, but it’s not about Harry, not exactly.

It’s about two people who want to work together, figure out what’s going so wrong and what they need to do to make it right. About the past and the present and being better. But it also is about Harry, about not calling the morning he woke up to an empty bed if only to ask why Zayn was in such a hurry to leave. Harry should’ve called; text ‘good morning’ and sign it with a single _H_ so Zayn would’ve known, could memorize his number too. After a week went by, it would’ve still been acceptable, less at two weeks, but practically impossible now, five months later.

“Last night was fun,” Harry read with a whine. “Call me sometime. _Call me sometime_?” He put his cheek against the table, his hands falling next to his face. “What does that even mean?” he groaned, partly to hide himself from the bright overhead light and partly from Nym. He knew she would get judgy and Harry wasn’t in the mood.

“I guess it means what it says.”

He whined again. “You’re not helping me at all.”

“Whatever you two ended up doing after you disappeared,” Harry felt a tap of fingers on his head, “was apparently _fun_. That’s what it means.”

“But what am I supposed to do with that? _It was fun_. I know it was fun, I was there.”

Nymeria hummed deeply. “What _did_ you end up doing, anyway?” She placed something in front of his head. Harry didn’t have to look to see it was ice-cream and a spoon.

Blushing only a little, he raised himself and cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair. “Should I call him?”

Nymeria snorted. “I don’t know, should you?”

“I want to.” But he knew those weren’t one and the same. Just because he wanted something, didn’t mean it was good for him. Writing was helping him process his new found resolution of not throwing himself at people like he was some sort of a prize won over too easily. He wanted to be the one up on the top shelf that you never had enough tickets to get.

“What about,” she waved her spoon around, mouth full of chocolate chip, “waiting and all that?”

“Do you think it would be too soon?” His eyes widened. It had been three days by then, since the last time he saw Zayn, touched him or felt him. Harry was sure he was going through some version of withdrawal. “I want to like, be respectful? Is that the word?”

 _I don’t want to be too eager,_ more like.

“Clearly you’re having some reservations about it, or else you’d be drooling all over him right now.”

Harry gasped. “I do not drool.”

“You do, and if you did what I think you did, he knows too.”

“Where’s Louis, I want to talk to him now,” Harry pouted as Nymeria laughed at him, before she fed him a spoonful of ice-cream.

“Relax, relax,” she said while he smacked his lips and wiped at his chin. “I think it’s nice, this whole waiting thing you finally decided on doing. I was, you know, getting a bit _worried_. Is that the word?” she parroted him with a knowing smirk Harry wanted to hide from. Sometimes, he really hated his friends. Even Nym. Especially Nym.

“I wasn’t that bad.” He tried to keep his eyes on her, but they drifted down to the table. He didn’t want to bite his lip, but he did anyway. It was like he had no control anymore.

“Please,” Nym snorted. “You went and literally tattooed a heart on your arm, Harry. There’s no getting worse.”

“What? I think it’s nice.” He ran his finger over the crease of his elbow, feeling the barely there bumps of the old ink. _Just a heart, just a heart on your sleeve_.

“It’s nice,” she shrugged, “but, and don’t get all pouty at me,” she pointed her spoon for a second, before she gave him a look, her eyes half closed, gentle around the edges, “You were kind of giving it away for free. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with hookups,” she said quickly when Harry opened his mouth, ready to at least try to defend himself. “Not if they’re _just_ hookups.”

“I…” Harry started, but he had nothing to say to that, nothing that would have made him seem less like exactly what Nym said he was. Hopeless and desperate and chasing after everyone that would run away from him without even asking why they were running in the first place. Harry’s too self aware, knows himself well enough to know he was chasing that, the ‘a little’, because it seemed like he wasn’t meant for ‘a lot’. For a long time, it seemed like Harry wasn’t meant for anything.

“Don’t do that,” Nym shook her head at him, pushing the ice cream closer to his spoon. “That’s just one way of looking at it, right? You’re… I guess you’re optimistic.” She shrugged her shoulders and smirked, licking her chocolate covered lips.

Harry tried to smile, but he filled his mouth with another spoonful instead. “Thanks.” He didn’t even try to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t even my idea, the whole waiting thing.” He dug his spoon into the ice cream, rolling it around and around. “It was him, you know, he made a reference to football and he didn’t even seem the type to know anything about football,” he laughed at the memory of it, how his eyes bulged and his pants did as well. Harry didn’t know he had a thing for someone talking quarterbacks and end zones to him. “And Zayn said I needed either to stop, which I’ve heard before,” he snorted at her and rolled his eyes again, “or find, you know, _a wide end receiver_ ,” he shivered at the words. “So.” Shrugging at the end, he licked his spoon, because it was obvious which route he ended up going. It had been a nice change of pace though, not having to scratch his brain for names or force that one smile that always worked, a little lopsided with a dimple in one cheek and his lip between his teeth. He’s missed the warmth of it, the fun of it, but this was okay. This let him focus on writing, instead.

“So you listened to him?”

“Well, yeah.” He looked up from the plastic bowl to see Nym frowning at him with her mouth hanging open. “What?”

“You listened to this guy the first time you meet him, but you don’t listen to me when I’ve basically been telling you the same thing for... for years Harry. _Years_.”

Harry laughed and pushed the ice cream back to her. “He made a very good point.”

“Mhm,” she hummed. “I think you better call Louis now.”

Throwing his head back with a laugh, Harry cooed and walked around the table to hug his arms around Nym’s waist. Although she caved and leaned back against him, Harry couldn’t stop from dropping his smile a little, because time stopped and Harry listened, he paid attention, he knew what it meant. He just hoped he was doing the right thing, waiting to be respectful.

Now Harry listens to himself sing about ghosts and thinks _good_ , because he doesn’t want to feel happy or nostalgic about his childhood memories like he does with Sweet Creature. Harry wants to cry and go back to that night, hold Zayn tighter and ask him to stay in the morning, because maybe then Harry would’ve been brave enough to do something other than stare at the spot Zayn slept holding onto him. Maybe he wouldn’t be so wrapped up in his own head.

It’s not healthy to live in the ‘what would it be likes’ that he keeps circling around like a vulture in the desert, nails out and beak open, because it can make a person go crazy, make them lose parts of themselves as they fly above fresh prey of a fantasy that feels like it’s from another universe, years away, where his wings can’t take him. The way Harry said ‘I love you’ last time, both unaware and easy, whispering it into the still hot air between him and Jason, listening to his own panting and Jason’s ‘a little’ in a small voice, cracked him in half, broke him just like it did every other time he was let down easy, as if there was such a thing.

The fantasies can drain you, make you think you can change the past if only you try hard enough, wish for it every night before you fall asleep like you’re praying to a god you’re not even sure is there listening to your silent pleas.

So now all he can do it lay on his couch and listen to a song he wrote that says the things he can’t, in rhymes and melodies that only he understands the meaning of. Harry’s still a hopeless romantic, chasing love around by its tail, he just doesn’t jump at it anymore. Rather than pushing himself, he’s trailing behind slowly, waiting for that push that used to come all by itself.

They end up adding another layer of harmony and pick up the tempo by a sliver, just to make it sound like Harry’s being optimistic, so that it’s more about inevitable change rather than failure. Before he finishes another song, it’s declared one of the singles, showing massive potential.

If nothing else, at least the waiting is inspiring Harry to keep writing.

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will take a little bit longer.


	3. I won't get mad when you say things are getting too hard

It doesn’t really start, it’s just there. One day, Harry is wearing jackets and sweaters, reminding himself it never gets cold enough for a black wool coat, but buying it anyway, on a whim, spur of the moment kind of thing. He wears it once and then hangs it in his closet with a whispered apology. The sweaters drift from the hanging racks up to the top shelves all by themselves, until even his frilly shirts don’t breathe enough and Harry’s eyeing a cut off pair of frayed jeans. His hair gets too long, not that he’d ever say it out loud, so he holds it away from his eyes with scarves and elastic bands and anything else he can find. Not a headband though, because Louis says he looks stupid with it on and Harry believes him.

Summers never start for Harry anymore. Blurred and a little hazy, like he’s had to much to drink, the days crawl up behind him, climb over his sweaty back and then jump off at the first sight of a leaf changing its color. There’s nothing that holds his hand and tells him that this is it, sunshine and lavender and the AC turned on blast. Harry should know though, because he eats more tangerines than any one person should.

The first time, Harry didn’t even know what was happening. He was sitting on the couch with Gemma, flipping the pages of the weekly ads they got in the mail, the paper that flittered through the hole in their front door that didn’t mean much more at the time than a peeking square to see if Nym was on her way to his house or not. They were sitting with their legs twisted underneath them, pressed close together from head to hip, as their dad sat on the other end of the sofa, his own paper in hand, except his wasn’t colored or glossy, he wasn’t making a game out of it. Anne kept glancing over at them from her ironing board, laughing when Harry tried for a joke and frowning whenever Gemma flicked at his temple for each one. 

They opened the next one between them, this one from a shoe store in the mall, the name of it in bright red letters, but Harry couldn’t remember it now if he tried. And he doesn’t think he’d want to anyway. He scanned the first page quickly, glancing at the heels and the flats, the special offer on a pair of flip-flops neither him nor Gemma picked. Her finger landed on a black leather pair of heels or boots or something in between. He doesn’t know, but he thinks he picked suede boots, probably a dark brown, because he hasn’t changed much from when he was eleven years old. Not in any fundamental way.

“These, I want these ones mom!” She couldn’t see, but that didn’t matter. It was a game, something to do on a Saturday morning after breakfast. And it wasn’t  _ that _ fun, when most of the pages were more aiming at Gemma than him, a boy with a dollar a day allowance, but she was there, laughing and saying, “I want to learn to walk in heels, mom,” so it didn’t really matter. He remembers Gemma wasn’t that interested in family-time back then, definitely not after that day, definitely not as much as she is now. 

Anne mostly just hummed and smiled at them, Des barely flinching from frowning at the newspaper. Next page was filled with hiking boots, but they picked anyway, a pair of bright pink ones and the same pair for Gemma, who scowled and said, “They’d look better on me.”

Flipping the page, it seemed the amount of shoes multiplied, barely a quarter of an inch between each of the pairs, the prices below them the least interested bit out of all of it. Harry picked and then Gemma did, more leather and then something orange, Harry remembers a pair of orange shoes he wanted. Sometimes he tries to picture them, when he can’t sleep or won’t let himself. He’s come as far as orange and brown, and dark laces, but that’s as much as he knows. He can’t remember the damn shoes and that’s the worst part of it all. Harry can’t remember the damned shoes.

Just as his finger landed on the pair, the phone started to ring and Gemma yelled, “Who is it?” before anyone even moved to pick it up. Anne threw her head back with laughter and even Des peeked over the top of his newspaper, just quickly enough to stay like that, eyes sparkling and a smile stretched over his lips when everything stilled and suspended. A  _ click _ , and Harry was the only one left breathing.

Try as he might, he can’t let go of the very first stillness that landed harshly somewhere on his chest, like an anvil in his lungs until he took a breath and blinked his eyes. Anne’s head was at an awkward angle, her foot in mid air, hand already stretch out to grab the phone hanging on the wall between the kitchen and the living room. Gemma was frowning, like she did for days afterwards, but Harry could see her dimple too, poked his finger against it and then quickly took his hand back, because he didn’t know what was happening, why nobody was moving, why he couldn’t hear his mom laugh even if she was right there.

Now Harry knows that he was meant to savour the moment, take it all in, because it was going to be gone in the next two seconds. He knows it was to ease the blow, to make him land softer in the pile of rough feathers that still left cuts all over his palms. Back then he didn’t. Harry drew his knees closer to his chest and waited as the seconds  _ tick tick ticked _ by soundlessly, surrounded by immovable happiness for what felt like forever, but not long enough, not nearly long enough. Harry doesn’t know if he’d do it differently. If he had another chance, he doesn’t know if he’d stand up and hug Anne as tightly as he possibly could, poke Gemma in her dimple again and kiss her forehead. Maybe he’d want someone there, stuck in the silence with him to hold his hand for what was to come.

Harry breathed out and it  _ clicked _ again, Anne’s foot back on the carpet, fingers curling around the phone. He didn’t look down at the magazine when Gemma flipped the page again, didn’t see Des lower his gaze back to the black and white text of his rough paper.

He heard his mom gasp into the phone, her hand covering her mouth in the next second, whispering, “ _ What _ ?” with a heavier breath than she should’ve ever had to carry. And then Des was up, behind her, asking something, urging her away from the phone and out of the living room as Gemma said a quiet, “What’s going on?” with a shaky voice.

Harry didn’t know, he didn’t know what was happening or where he was or hold long it’s been since he last blinked. He remembers looking down at the magazine, the orange and brown shoes, thinking  _ those, I pick those _ , right as Des sat on the couch with a huff.

His mom was crying. Harry couldn’t hear her, not over the beating of his heart in his ears, but he knew she was.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

Harry wanted to ask too, because he thought he should, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.

Des groaned. He ran a hand over his face and Harry could’ve sworn he was trying not to cry. He had never seen his dad cry before. “It’s,” he started, looking down at the rug. “It’s your nana. She’s -”

“Oh god.”

“What? What?” Harry finally managed, grabbing Gemma’s sleeve and holding on. “What is it? Where’s nana?”

“Harry, she’s -” Des stuttered. “She’s gone.”

He didn’t know then, eleven years old, in the middle of a stupid game while his mom cried in the other room, his dad on the brink of tears and Gemma breathing harshly next to him. Harry didn’t know why, but all he could think was no more tangerine stained hands.

_ No more tangerine stained hands. _

Now there’s just enough humid in the air to cling to his curls, furling them in whichever way it pleases which is the exact opposite of what Harry wants, but he doesn’t think it’s summer heat. Harry tries not to think of summer at all. He’s swatting them away from his eyes as he looks at Sammy’s neat blond locks, all falling over her tiny head like they’re stacked in a neat row. She doesn’t even know how lucky she is. Harry tries not to be jealous. 

He tells her as much and she gurgls at him, pushing herself half out of the stroller to reach the ice cream cup in his hand. Typical, Harry thinks, don’t listen to word I say. She smiles though, as soon as he gives over the spoon, so it’s not all bad. Sammy still likes him best.

When Harry doesn’t hear anyone behind him, he stops at the side of one store and gives her another dose of chocolate, because after lunch, Gemma will take her home and he won’t have to deal with her sugar high. Harry is only the best uncle Sammy has, even if Greg isn’t half bad either. Her cheeks are stained with it, hands sticky even if he doesn’t let her touch the spoon.

Harry has barely any free time now, the writing going in full swing. Jeffrey the manager is focusing back on Harry more than his other artists, and Harry wants to feel bad about it, but then he’d have to admit he doesn't mind talking about potential and sales, while Jeff the producer can’t stop going on about a surprise for an intro to the song Harry’s most apprehensive to write. Harry talked about it,  _ Only Angel _ , that it will be one of the louder ones, out there, something he can scream on stage and feel every word of it vibrate deep in his chest. He hasn’t even started yet, and he thinks it’s already there, snug against his third and fourth rib. That’s as far as he’s gotten with it, no other words trailing at the end of his thoughts.

Harry’s been having serious writing sessions with himself and a lit candle, not even a guitar to distract him from the words he wants to sing. It’s mostly been about lost chances and the need to talk, to say what’s on his mind and tell the truth. It’s almost like that’s the only thing that’s been on his mind lately and he can’t get rid of it. Jeff even got worried at a time, said he couldn’t listen to another take of Harry screaming about the sign of the times into the mic without a serious sit down to clear some things up. But Mitch knows, he plays guitar and listens to Harry as he drives them home after hours and nods at all the parts that take Harry longer to explain without being too specific. He wonders if Mitch even understands half of it. Mitch knows about the post-it and the boy that inspired it all, every last word. So he’s the one who pats Jeffs on the back, one and the other, and tells them not to worry, that Harry has it all under control, even if they both know he doesn’t, not even a little bit.

But it’s been helping, getting it all out, hearing it play back with the lights out in his living room, sitting on the floor with his hands behind his back carrying all his weight. It’s Harry’s way of reaching catharsis, one note at a time. But he can’t help but wonder how long it’ll take.

Sammy gurgles at him and giggles for no reason, so he giggles right back, just so that she doesn’t have to do it alone.

“I’m gonna need to get her all new clothes,” Gemma says with a sigh as they stop in front of another children’s store. “She’s growing  _ so  _ fast.” It’s not the usual happy tone of when Sammy said her first word or pulled herself up to her feet all by herself, excited and looking forward to the next first thing, first time. But Harry gets it, after the time she came over his place for the first night since having Sammy, alone with bags in her hands and underneath her eyes, because ‘I need to sleep for two days, then I'll go back home.’ Harry put her on his bed and called Niall, but they didn't talk much, because Sammy was crying her little heart out even though she was fed, clean, changed, burped and fresh from a nap. 

They’re walking down the street slowly, Anne and Gemma talking about diapers and rashes while Harry keeps his head down in the stroller, screwing his face up at Sammy to get her to laugh, when Harry hears an eerie call of his name that swats at his face like a slap.

He turns around apprehensively, as if he's moving in slow-motion, and he might just be. Maybe time is slowing down one incomprehensible second after the other again, as his eyes land on a smiling Zayn waving at him.

“Hey,” Zayn offers. He's twisting the plastic bag in his hands as they look at each other, awkwardly, both waiting for Harry to say something back. Probably a ‘hey’ in return, and then a ‘how are you’ followed by a bland answer and an ‘alright, see you’ that isn’t true. But Harry doesn’t think he’s able to, his eyes following the grown out strands of Zayn’s hair falling over his eyes, the tips green and yellow, instead of opening his mouth and making a sound. Harry moves his eyes over his chest and legs, down to the laces on Zayn’s boots before he notices the women standing at his sides, looking expectantly at Harry with Zayn’s wide brown eyes. He watches as Zayn scratches at the back of his neck, shifting back and forth on his heels. “Um, long time no see, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, long time,” Harry stutters out in a clumsy rush. He doesn't know where to look; at Zayn, his mother, or Gemma and Anne, whose eyes Harry can feel on the sides of his face. It’s like everyone’s looking at him and he doesn’t know what he should do. Harry settles his eyes on the tips of his boots. “How have you been?” He lifts his eyes up carefully, already feeling an embarrassing blush climbing up at the side of his neck.

“Good, good.” Harry can see Zayn’s nodding at him, probably giving him what has to be a sympathetic smile, because it can’t be awkward for just Harry. “Oh, this is my mom and this is Waliyha, my little sister.”

When Harry looks at all of them, Waliyha swings her hand at Zayn’s shoulder, rolling her eyes, but it's Trisha that says, “Oh, you're Harry,” with an emphasis that Harry doesn’t know what to do with.

Harry’s eyes must give something away, because Zayn’s quick to blush. “I guess I am,” Harry says quietly, wondering if he is. Maybe Zayn knows more than one Harry and he likes all of them better than the one that’s standing in front of him right now, looking like he can’t quite breathe right. “And um,” he shifts back a bit, “This is Zayn.”

“Hi Zayn,” Anne says happily with a little wave that Gemma mimics as she’s bent down towards Sammy. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Are you out for a stroll?” Zayn’s mom asks, because Zayn and Harry are useless, looking at their family members like someone’s about to run off and they’ll have to catch them, ready for anything, but mostly for running after them and as far away from each other as they possibly can.

Harry doesn’t know why, but he hopes that isn’t true. It’s been months, the time from then to now stretching slow and heavy over them, and he doesn’t want it to end now just yet, not so quickly.

“Oh, just window shopping. Getting this one ice-cream.” Anne’s pointing down at Sammy, who’s happily gurgling in her stroller, clearly unfazed by this entire thing. Sometimes, Harry wishes he was five years old again, clueless and out of touch with reality, playing with Legos in his room or signing karaoke in front of the TV on Sundays while his mom hangs up clothes. He wishes it was still acceptable to tuck his face inside his t-shirt when he wants to disappear.

“She’s adorable, looks just like you.”

Gemma blushes like she always does when someone mentions how cute Sammy is with her dimples and bright blue eyes, her hair a golden shine that sparkles in today’s sunshine.

“How do you two know each other?” Anne asks, looking from one to the other, thinking she would’ve heard of a Zayn by now if there was a Zayn to know about.

Harry’s about to wave her off when Zayn says, “Oh, we met on the train for Thanksgiving,” casually, because he doesn’t know Harry has been avoiding questions about ‘the handsome boy from November’.

“Oh really?” Anne’s eyes practically sparkle as she turns them to Harry, grinning like the mad woman she is.

“What do you say me and Wali join you for a walk, so these two can catch up?” Zayn’s mom offers helpfully, but Harry doesn’t even hear it before Anne is agreeing and Gemma is pushing the stroller away, looking back at Harry with the kind of smile that makes him just as uneasy as Louis’. It’s going to take her less than a minute to text their group chat, Harry can feel it.

Harry flashes his eyes to Zayn, whose head is thrown back, huffing up at the sky before he looks at Harry with a, “Do you want to grab a coffee or something?” and a small smile.

“Um, sure, yeah.” It’s a conspiracy if Harry’s ever seen one, two families working together like a smooth machine. He almost wants to thank them.

“We’ll call you when we’re done,” Anne tells them with a wink over her shoulder.

So Harry and Zayn are left to stand in their spots as they watch their mothers and sisters fall into conversation and leave them behind, laughing before either has a chance to understand what just happened.

“Um,” Harry looks over and sees Zayn scratching at the back of his head again. 

“Coffee?” He smiles wider at Harry, his eyebrow raised, because he has to feel as awkward as Harry does. There’s no going around it, no hushed apologies or guilty shrugs to send over at Zayn as they cross the street to find a cafe. 

Harry doesn’t know where to start. He should start when he first saw the post-it and grinned so wide his cheeks hurt, stuck it to his fridge with a happy nod and eyeing it as he was leaning against the counter with a cup between his hands, pressing his toes into the cold tile. He wants to start at the beginning, when Zayn told him Harry needed someone to catch him or slow down his pace, an either or, and tell Zayn how he did that, both, one while waiting for the other. But Harry pretty sure he just wants to hear what a good job he’s doing and from the look on Zayn’s face, his lips pressed together in a tight line, Harry doesn’t know if that’s what he’ll hear.

Saying it out loud though, would be pathetic.  _ I didn’t call, because you said it was fun, and it  _ was, _ but I’m listening to you and I want more. I need more. I’m giving time time. _ Harry didn’t think he’d have to say it out into the open, the  _ I want the love _ or ask the  _ do you want to be the one to give it to me _ ? He wants to tell the truth, and for once, Harry doesn’t want to use the cliche he’s heard more times than he could count. He wants to be honest. It isn’t Zayn, it’s Harry.

They turn into the first coffee shop they see, this quaint cafe that isn’t trying too hard to be aesthetic, no witty quotes on the walls or plants all over like that one place that made Harry feel like he was eating a croissant in the jungle. He would appreciate a good quote though.

They order at the counter, a regular latte for Zayn and foamed rice latte with almond shavings at the side for Harry, that Zayn snorts at and doesn’t even try to hide it. Harry just smiles back at him. Watching their drinks be made in silence is unnerving, because they both know what’s coming, so it isn’t shocking when they find a table, sit down and the first thing Zayn says before he takes a sip is, “You didn’t call,” with a calm voice and a hint of a smirk. But it does make Harry sweat around the collar of his shirt.

It isn’t a question, because it’s a fact. Harry didn’t call. He didn’t. But he doesn’t know what to say, if he should jump into an excuse or let it hang there between them like an intricate acrobatic act. He ends up nodding and repeating, “I didn’t call,” trying to make it sound like he isn’t hiding from it. He couldn’t even if he tried.

“Was there a reason or…” Zayn trails off. He leans back in his chair and takes a careful sip without even looking at Harry. Maybe he doesn’t want to make Harry squirm, since he doesn’t know, and Harry might actually have a good reason for it. He probably does though.

But, Harry ends up shrugging in question as he says, “I was busy?” with his voice climbing up in doubt, feeling worse than he did before when he sees how Zayn’s expression shifts from nonchalance to something sour. “Not like that.” Harry rushes to say. “Not like a douchebag that’s trying to give you a hint, nothing like that.” Zayn chuckles at him, and Harry tries his best. “I was just…” He groans and dumps the almonds into his coffee all at once, even if he prefers it little by little. “I was busy writing and, er, changing some things in my life,”  _ I thought about you, I wrote a song about it, does that count? _ “and then,” Harry shrugs again. “This is gonna sound really pathetic.”

“I can imagine,” Zayn nods. He’s listening, even if he’s barely looking at Harry.

Biting his lip, Harry says, “After the first week, I thought I waited too long, so…”

“So you didn’t call.” Zayn’s eyebrow is raised skeptically in the same arch that Harry’s stomach flops down to the floor, as he finishes for him. Of course he’s right.

“Yeah,” he breathes out pathetically, shaking his head at himself and keeping his eyes on the foam of his drink instead of Zayn. He gets it. Meeting Zayn’s eyes and seeing what he’s thinking behind them is about the last thing Harry wants to do. Right after hearing that tone of his voice.

“And you didn’t think I’d be waiting longer than a week for you to call?”

“Were you?” There’s hope in his voice, Harry couldn’t hide that if he wanted to, but then Zayn says, “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” stoically, so it evaporates into the uncomfortable air between them.

“I’m really sorry.” Harry stirs his drink once, twice. He can’t say why though, that it  _ was  _ fun, but Harry is trying to be better, he needs to get better. “I really am.”

Zayn shrugs. “You should be.” And he’s smiling, barely, but it’s there, in the corners of his lips and eyes, little wrinkles that Harry wants to trace with the tip of his finger. 

“I am.”

“So,” Zayn starts, putting his drink on the table and keeping his expression serious as he looks at Harry, “Keeping in mind that you made me regret giving it to you in the first place.” Harry swallows around the lump in his throat. “If I give you my number again, will you call me this time?”

Harry blushes.  _ God _ , he’s more desperate for it than he thought. “If that were to happen,” he mumbles down at the table carefully, his feet tapping the floor in an impatient  _ tap tap tap _ beat, “then yes, I would definitely call you.”

“Within the first week or after?” Zayn smirks. “Just so I know.”

Harry breathes out a laugh, having a hard time believing this is happening. For some reason, Zayn makes him feel like that every time he brings his eyes up to Harry. “Definitely within this week.”

“That’s a bold statement since it’s Thursday.”

Harry agrees. “Three days left.”

“Enough time for you?” They’re joking, smiling at each other and the situation, but Harry knows there’s an underlying truth to their words even if he can’t keep from feeling happy, just a little, just enough for his chest to feel warm.

“Definitely. And um, I still have your number. So.”

Zayn’s eyes widen a little, but he isn’t thrown off by Harry’s quiet addition. “Okay, then, I guess you’re all set.”

“Do you want-” Harry shakes his head. He doesn’t know why it’s so hard to say, “do you want  _ my  _ number?”

Zayn laughs into his latte. “No, I’m good.”

“Oh, okay,” Harry nods. He’s confused, but he gets it. He needs to be the one to call.

“And it’s not,” Zayn starts to say, his eyes wider than normal, lip between his teeth. There’s something about the way he’s frowning at his cup that makes Harry sit up straighter.  “I guess it’s not that recent,” he scratches at the back of his head, “but I got out of a serious relationship and I’m not, you know…”

Harry waits, leaning forward as the seconds trickle by them, one by one. But Zayn lets the words hang between them, in the palm of his hand, hidden away from Harry just by that much. “Oh.”

“I’m not saying this in the best way, am I?”

“No, no,” Harry waves him off. He wants to scream, because no, he doesn’t know what Zayn is trying to say, whether it’s  _ I just want fun _ or  _ I don’t want anything, at at all, whatever you’re thinking, you can stop _ . “I get it. I’m, um, I’ve decided to listen to you, actually.” He swallows dryly, clearing his throat afterwards. “And I’m not rushing into anything at the moment, just, you know, think I’m gonna be by myself for a while.” He knows he’s talking too slowly, even slower than usually, his words bleeding together at the end. But at least  _ he  _ needs to be clear here, if Zayn’s not going to say anything else. “Was it, the relationship, was it bad?”

Zayn sighs down at the table and starts shaking his head. “It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either.” He brings his eyes tentatively to Harry's, saying something Harry doesn’t understand before he goes on. “We were too young and too clueless about everything,” Zayn laughs, but his eyes don’t shine with it. “I haven’t spoken to her since we broke off the engagement.”

“Oh, wow,” Harry breathes out before he even knows he’s doing it, eyes as wide as Zayn’s. “Sorry.” He slaps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, that was-”

“It’s fine, like I said, it’s not like it happened yesterday,” Zayn says, but the air around his shoulders is stiff, hard like an armor. “I just wanted to, you know…”

_ I don’t _ . Harry’s never been there, never had a relationship long enough to get to that part of it, getting on one knee with a ring in his hand and a forever of the tip of his tongue. He’s barely even had an ‘I love you’ and even that didn’t go over as he thought it would.

He doesn’t know what to say, if he should nod and say he understands completely, because he doesn’t. But he thinks he knows what Zayn is trying to say.  _ Last night was fun _ . Maybe they can have fun together, maybe it doesn’t need to go slow or fast or in any specific direction. Not yet.

Harry wonders if this is why time stopped, if it was trying to make him focus on Zayn and his fleeting form leaning forward just that inch, because it knew Harry wouldn’t get more than that. Maybe all they’re supposed to have is a pause nobody even notices. Just a step for them to climb together.

It’s selfish, Harry knows, but he hopes there’s something more to it than that.

So he clears his throat and tries to keep his eyes on Zayn as he mumbles,  “I like you. I- I get that you need time or that you don't- I just- I like you. You should know.” And Zayn should, maybe he deserves to know. It might be even more selfish to not tell him. Harry pretends like that's the reason. “But I don't expect anything.”  _ Now. _ He doesn't, he can wait. Harry can be patient when he needs to be. And at least one of them need to be clear with their intention here, even if Harry knows it won’t get him anywhere. He hates it, knowing to no uncertain extent that he has no idea what he’s doing. 

Nodding shortly, Zayn clears his throat and says a shaky, “So.” And then he shifts in his chair and Harry moves with him, crossing his feet at the ankle that marks a forceful change in the mood that isn’t entirely unwelcome. “How have you been?”

Harry smiles at himself and then at Zayn. “Busy?”

After a cautious second, where they look at each other and almost wait for something to  _ pop, _ they end up laughing into their coffees. “Writing songs?”

“Yeah, actually.” He looks down at his hands wrapped around the cup, rattles his rings against the hard paper a little, because there’s something in his chest fluttering with the hope that Zayn might be happy to hear this. “I have a few more now.”

“Any good?”

Harry says, “You can listen to them and tell me,” trying for brave even if his voice wavers a little. He can’t help but be hopeful.

“Oh, okay, yeah, I can definitely do that.” And then it’s like they’re both remembering that night when Zayn heard Harry’s song for the first time, how anxious Harry was and how patient Zayn was being, nodding along to the melody, taking it in and listening as Harry kept his eyes closed and his lip between his teeth. Everything that happened after. “What are the titles?”

“I’ve only recorded one other, it’s, um… It’s called  _ Two Ghosts _ . I’m kind of being a bit slow with it,” Harry says and he doesn’t feel bad about it. He needed to get it through his head, that he can’t rush it. He needs to take his time and do what he loves and be honest. Once he realized it’s a lesson he’s never really learned, it was easier to get a grasp of things. He doesn’t mention  _ Sign of the Times _ , not yet. “Obviously.”

“No rushing?” Zayn asks, of course he does, with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, asking two things at once.

“Nope,” Harry pops the  _ p _ . “No rushing.”

“That’s good.”

Harry hums and takes another sip. “Most of them aren’t any good,” he goes on with a frown. “And it’s not like… I know they’re not, but at least some are, you know?”

It’s a process. That’s what it is, of the melody being too jumpy, not dynamic enough, either lulling or ecstatic. Sometimes he starts writing and he feels the thrum in his fingertips, a buzz right underneath his skin and he can feel it, the words pouring out of him like a waterfall. And then it’ll stop, like something inside him turns off and there’s nothing left to say, stuck between the chorus and second verse. It’s a process.

“You should be proud.” Zayn says it so sternly that it makes Harry’s leg jump underneath the table. “You’re doing it, writing songs and recording and all of it. You should be proud of yourself.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say - thank you seems too serious, not genuine enough. Nothing Harry could say would be enough, so he asks, “What about you? Teaching? Writing the next great American novel?” as he shifts in his seat again.

Zayn’s lips twitch at him and he blinks slowly in acknowledgement. He knows. “I think I’m gonna give it a go when the new semester starts, actually.”

“Yeah?” Harry can feel his own lips stretching into a smile. “That’s what, like, two months away.”

“Urgh, don’t remind me.” Zayn shivers. “I feel like throwing up already.”

“Why? You’ll be amazing. I can picture your students swooning over the new hot professor.”

Zayn snorts. “Oh, yeah, definitely.”

“They’ll be lining up for your classes. You’ll see.”

“Hopefully they won’t just be swooning though.”

Harry frowns at him, cocks his head as he waits for an explanation, and then when Zayn laughs and says, “Learning, Harry, I hope they’ll learn something too,” he has to look down and laugh too.  _ God _ . He tries not to focus too much on Zayn saying his name.

“Of course, yeah. That too.”

Harry takes a second to watch Zayn finish his drink with his phone in front of his face, before they’re standing up, because the girls are waiting for them. It’s a short second, but Harry knows it’s enough for right now.

Before they go off in their opposite directions, Harry promises to call again.

That night, after he showers and makes himself something to eat, Harry settles down on his leather couch with his legs crossed and a glass of wine in one hand, his phone in the other. He saved the number before he sat down, so that it’s in there now, at the bottom of his contact list. He mutes the TV before he goes to open the dial pad and puts in the number halfway, Zayn’s name popping up at the bottom of the screen.

He takes an apprehensive breath and smiles at himself for being so dramatic, but he can’t help the butterflies in his stomach or his sweaty palms. He takes a gulp of the wine before he dials.

_ “Hello?”  _ Zayn yawns as he picks up.

“Hi.” Harry pauses awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. He only adds, “It’s Harry,” because Zayn might not know. Not because he’s nervous.

_ “Harry who?” _

He laughs as he says, “The one that didn’t call,” because judging by Zayn’s drawl, he knows exactly who.

_ “Oh, that one. Hi.”  _ He hears Zayn smile, but Harry already knows he prefers seeing it.

“So this is me, calling you.”

_ “I mean, it only took you, what? Five months?” _

“We should just forget that, call it an intermission or something.”

“ _ An interlude _ .”

“Exactly.” Harry’s nodding his head at the muted TV, wondering where his nerves are melting away too, but he’s still too anxious to move his eyes anywhere else.

_ “We’ll see if you manage to call again.” _

_“_ What if, um... I was thinking, actually, first time for everything,” Harry jokes awkwardly, “There’s this show next week and I’m going with a couple of friends.”

_ “Yes?” _ Zayn asks courtly, which only makes Harry cough and whine lowly in his throat.

_ “ _ Would you, like, no pressure or anything, you can say no, but I was wondering if you’d want to go? Too? With me and my friends? It’s in LA.”

_ “Hmmm,”  _ Zayn pauses ominously, building suspension before he’s laughing at Harry’s audible whine this time. “ _ Yeah, sure, I’d love to. What kind of a show?” _

_ “ _ Like a music thing, the lineup is pretty good, I think, so…”

_ “Text me the time and place, yeah?” _

_ “ _ Yeah, yes. I’ll do that.” Harry has to contain himself from jumping up to his feet. This is going better than he thought it would.

_ “You were nervous about this, weren’t you?” _

“I mean…” Harry laughs. He never knew he was this obvious. “I was  _ insanely  _ nervous.”

With another interesting hum, Zayn drawls, _ “Good to know.” _

“Why?”

_ “It’s just interesting.”  _ Harry imagines Zayn shrug and smirk. 

“That I’m nervous?”

_ “That I make you nervous, the famous Harry Styles who performs in front of thousands of people.” _

“I used to do that,” he reminds him, “And this is different.” Even singing in front of three people makes him anxious and sweaty. Harry would take a crowd over a handful of people any day. Especially nowadays, as soon as he can. 

_ “I’d rather call someone than even stand in front of, I don’t know, twenty people.”  _ Zayn admits quietly, because that’s exactly what he’s supposed to do when the semester rolls around. 

“Oh no way, do you know how good that feels? It’s like… like electricity running through your veins.” He closes his eyes as he imagines it, hears the echo of the crowd from the time when anywhere he looked there were eyes glued to him, following his every move, eating out of the palm of his hand. 

_ “That sounds a lot like getting electrocuted, though,”  _ Zayn grumbles, unconvinced.

“You know what I mean.”

_ “I do, that’s why I’d never do it.” _

“It’s fun.”

_ “Do you miss it?” _

_ More than anything, more than I’ve ever missed something before. _ “I do.” It still isn’t easy to say it out loud.

_ “When do you think you’ll do it again?” _

“As soon as possible, honestly, I just want these songs to be written and done,” he admits, his legs moving as he talks, jittery just at the thought of it. “What about you though? Getting excited about teaching yet?”

_ “I’m… not quite there yet.”  _ Zayn laughs as he says it, but his nerves are tangible even through the phone. 

“But you will be.” Harry reminds him, because maybe Zayn needs to be reminded that it’s why he studied English in the first place, that the size of the crowd doesn’t matter in the end, one or twenty people, if you love what you do, it’s not that difficult in the end, when you’re there and you’re doing it.

_ “Have to be.” _

“I know you will be.” Harry insists. 

_ “You too.” _

“Yeah, hopefully,” Harry sighs. He’s ready, impatient by this point, to get back into the swing of things. 

_ “So,”  _ Zayn yawns again, “ _ I think I’m falling asleep here.” _

“Oh, sorry, I needed some time to gather up my courage and all that,” Harry says with a wave of his hand, as if Zayn can see it. As if he asked.

_ “Oh, Harry,” _ Zayn coos through the phone. 

“What?” he drags, only a little embarrassed. “There’s nothing wrong with a pep talk.”

_ “I’ll see you next week?”  _ Zayn asks around a laugh.

“Yeah, I’ll text you right now.”

_ “Okay,”  _ Zayn chuckles at his excitement.

“Okay.”

_ “Goodnight.” _

Harry sighs, slipping further into the couch now that he’s done it and it’s over and he can relax a little. “Goodnight Zayn.”

_ “Bye Harry.” _

Harry texts him as soon as he hangs up, and maybe he adds a single  _ x _ at the end with a capital  _ H _ , because it won’t hurt anyone and he feels brave all of a sudden. It doesn’t have to mean anything, even if it does to Harry. 

* * *

He’s panicking, Harry is definitely panicking. While Nymeria and Louis are probably laughing while getting their drinks, because they were far too composed when Harry said he’ll just wait outside for a couple of minutes and they probably didn’t want to make him feel bad, though probably only Nymeria didn’t want to laugh right at his face, Harry is standing outside, can practically hear their laughter and he is officially panicking. He’s also staring at the last text Zayn sent him:  _ be there in five ! ! _

It was sent fifteen minutes ago and Harry knows how traffic is a perpetual nightmare, but there’s people all around him, smoking their last cigarettes before the show starts and even if it isn’t that important – Harry doesn’t really know who’s performing, he never remembers – Zayn still isn’t here. And Harry could’ve texted something by now, thinks he should’ve, but he didn’t want to come off as anxious, too desperate, or like he’s  _ panicking _ , so he didn’t sen d a _ w _ _ here are you _ or  _ are you close? _ Standing there, looking down at his phone with his knuckle between his teeth, Harry wishes he had.

“If it isn’t the famous Harry Styles, nervous because of me again.”

Harry whips his head around, smiling as soon as he sees it’s Zayn.

“Nah, I’m cool as a cucumber.” But he can feel himself blush. He still doesn’t know if he likes Zayn calling him that or not.  _ Famous,  _ it’s a scary word. It might be less scary than the image of Zayn, in jeans with more holes than fabric over his thighs and a plain white T underneath that leather jacket,walking towards him.

“Talking like that, I doubt it,” Zayn laughs. And then Harry doesn’t know what to do and feels himself panic all over again. A friendly hug with an entirely friendly kiss on the cheek is what Harry wants to do, but there’s a voice at the back of his head saying it would be too much, too soon, that after all the time that’s passed between then and now, it would be inappropriate. Maybe he should go for a quick handshake or a pat on the shoulder. Harry doesn’t completely exclude ruffling Zayn’s hair as an option either.

So he ends up nodding and winking at Zayn, and then watching as Zayn’s face screws up a little and his hand disappears behind the back of his neck. He isn’t the only one nervous, at least, not that that puts Harry at ease.

“Everyone here already?” Zayn turns to look at the red sign above them.  _ Bootleg _ isn’t Harry’s favorite place, but some good musicians have played here when they were nothing, just like him, one original song and everything else their favorite covers that they aspired to be their own. It had a good vibe to it, so he thought it would be perfect for this. Whatever this is.

Because it’s awkward when he says, “Louis and Nymeria are inside getting us drinks,” without knowing where to look, and his eyes are automatically settling on his boots. He doesn’t know why he’d rather look at them than Zayn.

“Louis and Nymeria,” Zayn repeats, nodding, and then he’s turning to face towards Harry again, who is officially breaking out in a nervous sweat. Thankfully, Zayn chuckles lightly at him, probably knowing exactly how Harry feels. Maybe he’s feeling the same way, the tips of his fingers tingling too.

Harry wants to smack himself, twice, but he’s gathering his thoughts as he and Zayn both start for the entrance. They’re a jumbled mess, so he has to sift through them to say, “Nymeria is my oldest friend and Louis is… well Louis.”

“Great intel,” Zayn snorts and bumps the back of his hand against Harry. It’s barely a touch, so Harry doesn’t want to think of all the ways to make Zayn do it again. He definitely doesn’t want to think about all the ways Zayn’s touched him before and how different it is to now, all the ways Harry misses.

“Oh, no, god, this isn’t like…” Harry needs to stop talking right now. He doesn’t know how to do this. “It’s nothing, like, you don’t have to impress anyone. This isn’t that.”

“I mean,” Zayn shakes his head at him and stops Harry with a hand on his shoulder. He would never admit it, but it makes him melt right on the spot. “I know it’s not, but it also kind of is. And I don’t mind.” Zayn rises on the tips of his boots and presses a kiss on Harry’s cheek. And that makes Harry feel like he is on fire. “I want to meet the friends of my friend.”

This isn’t anything, this is exactly what Zayn says it is: Harry introducing Zayn, his friend, to his other friends, and it doesn’t matter, the impression he makes, except Harry knows they’ll love him no matter what, because Zayn is his friend. His friend who thinks kissing Harry on his cheek won’t make him shiver with everything it means and everything it shouldn’t. 

And that  _ is _ something, because Harry can’t let himself think that. He has to make himself not think at all, so he gives Zayn a smile and then he’s grabbing his elbow, because he doesn’t know what holding his hand will do to his stomach, and drags him towards the bar.

Louis is Louis, just like Harry said, asking “What are your intentions with our Harold?” like Harry knew he would and, “As his second best friend, I think it’s my obligation to tell you we don’t like people who try to steal him away from us,” that Harry promises to get back at him for, because that’s not something you say to someone, ever. Especially if Harry had no intentions of being their best friend. He knew he should see it like that, but he just can’t seem to do it. 

_ Time doesn’t stop for best friends. _

Nymeria is quick to smack the side of Louis’ head though. “Excuse him,” she smiles apologetically at Zayn and introduces herself as, “Nymeria, but you can call me Nym.” Zayn doesn’t know, but not everyone gets that privilege.

“Do we know who’s playing?” Zayn asks them, looking at their faces with his wide eyes.

“Lesson number one, pretty boy,” Louis starts and Harry’s groaning up at the ceiling. This is embarrassing. Harry doesn’t know why he thought this would be a good idea. “We never know who’s playing.”

Nymeria just squawks and Zayn snorts, but he’s laughing as Harry drags him away again. At least he finds Louis funny. Which is all Harry can hope for.

But now Harry’s really panicking. After the first two songs, Louis leaned across Nym to announce a mandatory cigarette break, “If I’m gonna listen to an out of tune rendition of Abba I need  _ something  _  in my system.” And Zayn followed, with a  _ be right back _ whispered close to Harry’s ear, because that’s what friends do. Harry usually tells Nym when he’s about to disappear to somewhere. Zayn clearly doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, though, and Harry can’t help but feel sorry for him.

“This will be  _ so _ bad,” Harry whines as soon as they disappear into the crowd, pouting at Nymeria, because she’s grinning and  chortling and definitely not being his best friend.

“Relax,” she says, pressing their foreheads together for a second, before she taps Harry lightly on his cheek. “Louis will be nothing but polite.”

Harry snorts this time. He’s nervous. He can’t help but be nervous around Zayn. He doesn’t know who he’s promised to take this friend thing in stride, but he wants to take it back. This is probably his worst idea yet. All he wants to do is kiss Zayn. 

“Oh, okay.” It sounds like Nym has reached some revelation and Harry actually has a look around them to see if he’s missing something. But then she says, “You actually like him.”

His head stops mid turn, eyes stuck on the stage where the three guys are frantically tuning their guitars by ear. Louis wasn’t wrong when he said they were out of tune. “I do.” Harry tries to play it cool. He desperately wants to keep this to himself, so he nods once and keeps a straight face. Even shrugs.

“You can call it a best friend’s hunch, but,” she pauses, and after knowing her so long, Harry can tell something really good or really bad will follow. Nothing in between. “I think your whole new,” she waves at him with her cup, “waiting thing, isn’t really a grand resolution, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Harry manages to keep his voice steady, but his face is burning, and there’s nowhere to hide, he can’t just put his hands over his eyes and pretend he isn’t there.

“He  _ is  _ pretty.”

Harry laughs at her, but he shakes his head, and it comes out as more of a whine. Harry reminds himself of more important things. “This isn’t like, like a date or anything. We’re not doing that. We’re friends.”

“But you don’t want to be  _ friends _ ,” she says with her brows furrowed. Harry can tell there’s something hanging on her tongue, something he probably won’t like hearing. He groans preemptively. “So you’re what? Waiting it out?”

He scoffs. God, sometimes Nym makes him feel transparent, like there’s a piece of paper stuck to his forehead with every thought he’s ever had written on it in a pretty curly font. “No. I’m, you know…”

She raises her eyebrows and waits.

“We’re hanging out.” He says, his tone defensive, because he didn’t want to justify himself, not when Zayn is practically two steps away, listening to Louis being his usual self. 

“How progressive of you,” she rolls her eyes and then smiles in the way that means she’s going to tell Harry exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. “I love you, you know that,” she starts, and Harry already feels himself shrinking. “And I don’t want to see you get hurt. So, just be careful, okay?”

How can he be? It feels like it’s all out of his control. He didn’t mean to sit opposite Zayn, didn’t ask for a sign of grand proportions to smack him across his face that would make his heart clench and then beat gently on, like something settling in his chest. Harry thinks of the time Nymeria came marching towards him when he and Gemma were waiting on the curb of their brand new house for the moving van, how he felt a second of time crawl over the back of his neck as soon as he saw her and her waist length hair, thick and dark, swaying around her like a pretty vail. He thinks  _ maybe, maybe it wasn’t a sign of anything _ .  _ Maybe I can pretend it wasn’t anything at all _ .

“I know,” he sighs and bumps their shoulders together. “It’s not like he-” Harry starts, but then he thinks better of it and says, “We’re just friends, it’s okay.” He doesn’t know what he means by it, if is it okay or not, if he’s okay. But it doesn’t matter.

Nym nods at him and tries to hug him around his middle, but then she’s rolling her eyes and sighing, which must mean she’s spotted Louis, so Harry schools his face back to its normal expression of feeling sorry for himself and stern determination, with a smile thrown in there just because.

Maybe he feels a wave of  _ it’s going to be okay _ that he almost believes when Zayn comes to stand next to him again and offers a smile of his own. But no one has to know.

Harry is panicking again though, because Zayn goes to buy them new drinks, a vodka cranberry that he keeps stealing from Harry until he ends up giving his beer to Louis and they share the drink, taking sips in turns, and Harry has to keep reminding himself that it’s just a good drink, that he can’t taste Zayn on the plastic rim. But with every drink Zayn has, he steps closer to Harry, practically in his side by the third song. The crowd isn’t too busy, not too many people choose to listen to amateur hour at the  _ Bootleg _ on Friday evenings when they could be doing so many better things for their ears. And Harry has no idea what it means, if Zayn wants something, or it’s a gravitational pull that’s making him step closer and closer with each chorus.

Harry looks over at Nym and Louis and sees their hands are wrapped together, Nym’s head leaning on Louis’ shoulder as they sway to the persistently out of tune acoustic rendition of  _ Dancing Queen _ . And then Harry looks over at Zayn and sees him standing stock still, except for his boot tapping on the floor. He looks out of place, like he’s the only one that isn’t colored in, just an outline of a person standing there, trying to sway with the beat but not quite managing it.

It takes a minute for Harry to swallow his nerves along with another sip to step closer to Zayn and put a hand on his shoulder, checking apprehensively to see if it’s okay, if he’s doing this right, whatever this is. Something friends do. He can see Zayn smile when he turns his head a little, and then he’s leaning into his side and moving along with him, so Harry wraps a more secure hand around his arm and they listen together, move a little with the beat when the band uses more than one guitar. It’s not exactly swaying and Harry doesn’t lean his head against Zayn even if he wants to, but it’s something. It’s something.

Harry knows he panicked for nothing, that Zayn told him he was interested too, in more than just one glorious night that Harry can’t and won’t forget anytime soon, even if Zayn is leaning towards less than more. Less  _ fun _ , more going outside to smoke with Louis and laughing when they come back without explaining it to Harry, so he can’t laugh with them. Nymeria doesn’t seem to mind, but Harry isn’t her, he can’t make himself be. And neither rushing nor catching has Harry’s brain twisted in knots he’s never had to untangle before. He’s trying not to panic, but it’s harder than he thought it would be.

Maybe Harry can do it,  _ it should be easy and simple _ , maybe he doesn’t have to think himself sick. This isn’t anything. This is what friends do. He just has to keep repeating that to himself until he gets used to the idea. This is all it’s meant to be.

Louis and Nym are tangled together as they move outside, stepping to the left of the people trickling to the pavement along them. Harry stuffs his hands into his pockets and sways on his feet a little as they call an  _ Uber _ , thinking he doesn’t want to go home yet, doesn’t feel like being left alone.

He inches closer to Zayn and, looking down at his feet, he asks, “Feel like getting another drink?” It takes him another second before he’s able to look up at Zayn.

“Sure,” Zayn says just as quietly and bumps their shoulders together. It’s probably meant to be reassuring, but it only makes Harry feel a little sick as they both end up watching Louis and Nym kiss on the corner.

They wait for the car with them and then wave them off as they disappear down the street, probably already making out in the backseat, but definitely not asking any questions Harry wouldn’t know how to answer. It shouldn’t feel as frustrating, watching your best friends be happy together, but Harry’s always been a mix of jealous and over the moon for Louis and Nym. Sometimes, the jealousy is so hot on his tongue he can taste it. But it’s nothing, he always swallows it down.

“I think you should get this round,” Zayn says with a smirk as they sit down at the bar, back inside. The music is coming from a playlist instead of instruments and though Harry’s always been a fan of the sight of vibrating strings and the grit of live vocals, he’s never appreciated it more. He doesn’t know how to feel when the song switches from something he doesn’t recognize to  _ Wild Horses _ though.

Harry doesn’t laugh, but it’s nearly there. “Whatever you want.” He tries to make it mean less than he wants it to.

“A double whiskey neat, I think.”

“Going for the hard stuff now, huh?” Harry smiles as he waves down the bartender and orders himself another cranberry vodka. He’s always been a sucker for the bitter taste. The sweetness never lasts, anyway.

“For the expensive, more like,” Zayn gives him a wink and Harry sticks his tongue out, like the mature adult he is. “You are the famous one, after all.”

“Yeah, well.” Harry doesn’t want to dwell, but he’s the type that does. Time and time again, he keeps remembering the  _ what was it like _ and the  _ this felt so good,  _ but especially the  _ god no, think about anything but that _ . “How are you though?” He ends up asking, because he doesn’t want to remember right now and they’ve barely said anything all night. “How’s your mom? How’s the, um, the guy?”

“The guy?” Zayn quirks his eyebrow and Harry ignores that too, but he plays it off as having to thank the bartender for their drinks. 

“Yeah, Liam? Something like that.” It’s Liam, Harry knows it’s Liam. He swallows down a sip.

“Oh, he’s good,” Zayn nods, “loves his job. He moved here,” Zayn goes on, and Harry takes the moment to just watch him. He isn’t big on hand movement, not as much as Harry is, but his lips curve up and down as he speaks, eyes going wide and then nearly close as he says, “made me carry all his heavy boxes and everything, but you know, ‘give until it hurts’ and all that.”

_ Wild Horses _ fades into  _ Everlong  _ and Harry is nodding and humming and asking, “What does he do?” and not thinking about the fact he has no idea where the quote is from. He really needs to finish one of those books.

Zayn rolls his eyes before he says, “Firefighter. The goody two shoes.”

“Oh.” Harry could never be a firefighter. He’s afraid of heights and he’d probably run away from a house on fire. He doesn’t do well in a crisis. Zayn doesn’t need to know that though.

“I know.”

“He should’ve come with you. Tonight. Here.”

“Nah,” Zayn says before he takes a sip and turns his seat so he can lean his elbow on the counter. He doesn’t mention Harry stuttering over his words, which he appreciates more than he’s ever had, if Harry’s honest. “It’s alright.”

“What about your mom?” Harry asks to distract himself from the sight of Zayn’s t-shirt clinging to his hips. He resolutely also does not think about the angle of Zayn’s spread legs. Not even a little.

“She’s…” Zayn raises a careful eyebrow. “Okay?”

“She seemed to,” he smacks his lips together and keeps his eyes somewhere on Zayn’s face that isn’t his mouth or eyes, “know who I was last week.”

Zayn actually blushes at that and Harry feels strangely proud at the sight. “I, um, might have mentioned you once. She, er, remembered, I guess.”

Harry hums to himself, feeling ten shades of satisfied as he bites at the rim of his glass to try and hide his smile. Zayn mentioned Harry, this Harry, the one sitting in front of him, the one who can’t find anything else to say that isn’t  _ can I kiss you? Please? _

“It was nice tonight,” Zayn tacks on when Harry takes too long to find words, and he doesn’t know if he’s just desperate to fill the silence or to change the subject. 

Harry finishes the last of his drink and says, “It was absolutely awful,” with a laugh that echoes Zayn, because it was, it really, really was. “I'm so sorry, I heard they were good.”

“So it wasn’t just me.”

“I don’t think they were in tune for one song,” Harry snorts quietly when he hears the bartender pointedly clear his throat somewhere behind him. 

“It wasn’t  _ that _ bad,” Zayn says too loudly and he’s shaking his head, eyes wide and happy. It twists something in Harry’s stomach, the expression on his face something like an achievement. Harry’s  _ so _ desperate. “Please tell me you’re not that bad.”

“Might be,” Harry shrugs, which is supposed to play it all off as easy, but he thinks his smile isn’t as relaxed as he wants it to be. “You’ll have to find out.”

For a second, it looks like Zayn won’t say anything, but then he takes his last sip with a, “Can’t wait,” that sends a shiver down Harry’s back. 

It’s all very unfair, from ending his night with Zayn’s company to him insisting on paying even when Harry already has his wallet out and Zayn’s laugh that trails after them as they make their way back outside. It’s all so horribly unfair, Harry wants to stomp his foot down and demand for Zayn to be just a little awful, so Harry can move on and tell time,  _ see, you were wrong all along _ .

It’s Harry who ruins it though, because it feels like he won’t ever move another inch in any direction, especially to move on, if Zayn keeps standing this close to him on the corner as they wait for their ride. It’s not his fault he stutters out a quiet, “You could, um - Do you want to come over to my place?” because he doesn’t want to be alone again, doesn’t want to say goodnight to Zayn. The last thing Harry wants to do is move.

Harry doesn’t know what the look Zayn gives him means, but he’d know his answer without having to ask. It’s clear, something apologetic and probably a little pitiful as well, and it hurts more than Harry is willing to admit to himself. He couldn’t not. Harry thinks he’ll ask every night until Zayn says yes.

It’s just waiting, Harry tells himself.  _ You just have to give yourself time, have to give it to Zayn as well.  _ Maybe they can start with a friendship and build from it. It doesn’t have to be a full stop.

“What if we grab lunch on Monday?” Zayn suggests when his  _ Uber _ is pulling up at the curb. 

“Oh, yeah, um, that works, yeah.”

“I just…” Zayn starts with a sigh, his fingers around the handle. 

“No.” Harry has to close his eyes to say it. “Don’t.” He’d rather not hear the speech.  _ You’re great, I like you, but  _ no. There’s always the  _ but _ that makes his stomach sink to the bottom of the ocean and Harry doesn’t feel like hoisting it up this late at night.  Not because of Zayn. “It’s fine. Lunch it is.”

Zayn’s still giving him a look that Harry can’t place, but he nods at him. Harry thinks he’s shivering with it, even if the air is hot and humid. 

“Lunch.”

“Text me when and where and all that.” Harry waves his hand around, a bit desperate to come off as cool and casual and everything he isn’t at the moment. God, he wishes time would stop so he could just disappear. 

“I will,” Zayn smiles at him then, this gentle thing that  lights up on his face. When he starts leaning towards Harry, there's a second where his stomach starts rising up into his throat. He closes his eyes and stays stock still until he feels a hand on his forearm and Zayn's lips on his check. Then, Harry melts. “Friends. Right?” Zayn throws him another smile, but it has an edge of apprehension this time, making it murky and grey, and it’s the last thing Harry wants.

He thinks,  _ I know how you taste before you go to sleep _ , and says, “Friends,” with a slow nod. It’s the same thing, it doesn’t matter. 

And then Zayn’s gone, slipping into the car Harry thought they'd share. It's better that they don't though. He needs to thank Zayn on Monday for it. Harry doesn't think he'd be able to survive it. 

If Harry pretends it isn’t there, the way his heart stops and starts in jumps, the way he swears the entire world pauses in suspense every time Zayn starts leaning forward and presses their cheeks together, his lips to Harry’s hot skin as the pulse of time ticks in his ear, then it isn’t there. Maybe if Harry tries hard enough, he can will everything to sweep away with a burst of wind. If Harry doesn’t let himself hope, then he isn’t waiting for something to happen. So he doesn’t.

* * *

* * *


	4. I won't take everything good and move it away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever, I know.  
> Also, as a side note, this was supposed to be all in the third chapter, but it got a bit too long, soI had to split it up.

No one can blame him, not that Harry thinks anyone notices.

At first, it isn’t even a conscious decision, it just happens, like most things do with Harry. His hands reach over the table and before he knows it, he’s tucking a piece of himself behind Zayn’s ear in an elaborate magic trick of now you see it, now you don’t.

They end up at Harry’s favorite lunch place on Monday when Zayn can’t make up his mind, texting _just pick a place ? ? I’m in the mood for anything good._ Determined to replace the year old memory of sitting at the table by the window with a pen in hand and an empty page staring back at him, taunting and loud, with something good instead, like watching Zayn sip his broccoli soup carefully but still burning the tip of tongue, Harry brings them to _Mama’s Secret_ , because he likes the way they bring his salad with everything on the side without having to ask anymore.

Sitting down opposite him with a tentative smile, Harry takes a piece of himself and gives it to Zayn: “This is my favorite place,” he tries to say it offhandedly, before he takes the purple menu in his hands, “They always have the best lunch options.”

Harry hums at the list of salads like he always does, keeping his eyes on it, as he thinks _there, now you know, now you can’t say I didn’t tell you about this place and what it means to me_. He looks down between their empty plates and murmurs, "I used to come here, before-” He has to swallow against the lump in his throat, but Harry manages to finish quietly, “I used to sit at this table and tried to write.” _Now you know._

Zayn hums as an acknowledgement and even if Harry can feel his eyes on his face, he doesn’t bring them up high enough to see it. Giving it another moment, he looks back at the menu and picks a salad at random to order.

Without meaning to at first, Harry throws pieces of himself at Zayn. It’s either as little gifts to show his gratitude for the hums and the nods and the questions he gets in return, or as tiny crumbs he hopes will keep Zayn interested long enough. For what, Harry doesn’t know yet. Or maybe he does, but doesn't let himself hope, not yet.

“I think I’m gonna go for soup,” Zayn says, instead of asking Harry if he still comes here to write and if he actually manages to do so, now that he has two songs recorded, one well on its way and a few others drafted in verses and hooks.

They come to _Mama’s_ on Wednesday as well, and then Thursday and Friday, and before he knows it, Harry’s driving through LA every day even though he’s always hated sitting in traffic. And without asking if the commute is too much, if Zayn hates the smell of a car left in the sun for too long as much as Harry does, they’re there every day, humming over their soups and salads.

“I think I prefer this one over the cauliflower,” Zayn says on a Thursday. He’s pressing a hand onto his chest, holding back his perfectly black shirt and black tie, so he doesn’t get it dirty as he piles food into his mouth, like he did two days ago. It’s always a bit of a shock, seeing Zayn like this, wearing clothes without holes, all pressed and tight and fitting just right. Harry knew Zayn wouldn’t go to campus as a TA who’s working on going through the syllabus, keeping up with his tutoring and going through past essays to know what to expect, in those jeans he wore last weekend to _Casey’s_ , the ones with the rips over the knees that gave Harry too many ideas. Logically, Harry knew, but it doesn’t mean he’s not having to adjust to this Zayn, the everyday Zayn he gets at noon as opposed to the one in cut off sweatpants and comfy t-shirts that are clearly too big for him. Harry’s still building up enough courage to ask if they’re Zayn’s or not. He doesn’t know if he could handle the answer.

“That’s because you hate vegetables.” Harry thinks he shouldn’t be as happy as he is with the amount of likes and dislikes he’s collected by now, but every time he gets something right, his chest swells and he’s smiling before he can make himself stop.

“At least I know how to eat a meal without having ten different sides to it.”

Zayn made fun of him for it for two weeks, but now it’s just something that he knows to expect.

“Shush and eat your food.” There’s a notebook, orange leather with a brown elastic sitting on the side of the table, because some days, Harry likes to linger after Zayn leaves, to write down a couple of words, just a sentence or two, before Gemma calls him asking if he could possibly find some time to babysit or Nymeria doesn’t stop texting him until he shows up at her door and then smiles like she didn’t blackmail him into watching some TV show with him. He’s all caught up on Arrow, and Harry never wanted to be. “You’ve got about a month left, right?” he says without preamble, but going by Zayn’s twisted up expression, he knows what Harry means. “Are you feeling good about it or?”

“Or I still feel like throwing up every time I think too long about it.”

“Nah,” Harry shakes his head. This is one of his favorite things to do, make Zayn feel better. “You just need to jump, you know. Like, pull it off like a Band-Aid.”

“I thought you were encouraging me to take my time with it, or was that all a ruse?”

Harry laughs around his sun-dried tomato. “You have a month left, though. That’s thirty days.” But that obviously doesn’t mean much, going by Zayn’s unimpressed look, so Harry puts down his fork and stretches against the back of his chair for a moment, enjoying the sun for a change. Soon, summer will be over and he’ll be able to relax a little. Soon, and he won’t have to convince Zayn to sit inside before giving up and dragging himself to one of the tables outside, huffing and puffing like he did today. His pout is yet to have an effect on Zayn. “Is it just the fact you’ll be standing in front of people?” 

“No,” Zayn shakes his head sternly, “It’s just…” he trails off and this is one of those moments. He’s going to give a piece of himself back. It makes Harry feel like the tide washing over the pebbles at the shore and pulling them into himself, greedily, always wanting one more. “Okay,” wiping his mouth with a napkin, Zayn leans back as well, “My parents are really proud of me, right? Their son the professor. They’re so proud of that, of me making something of myself. But am I? Or am I just doing it for them?”

It’s so frank, so honest, that Harry doesn’t know what to say. It feels like he’s holding on to more than just a tiny pebble.

“I don’t want to be, doing it for them, but maybe I am.” Zayn shrugs, his shirt pulling against his wide shoulders. “And that makes me nervous.”

“You don’t want to hate it,” Harry finally manages to say and he thinks it sounds like he understands, but he doesn’t, not really. He was supposed to be a social worker, doing something good, something fulfilling, but it was never meant to be. Even if most days the words seem to get further and further away from him, and Mitch still has a second job, because Harry isn’t doing much except for writing, and Jeff’s started working on other projects - even if Harry’s tapes are slowly starting to collect dust - _this_ is what Harry’s meant to be doing. And he’s never doubted that, not for a minute.

“I want to _love_ it. I want to _want_ to do it. Now it’s just…”

“Something you have to do,” Harry finishes for him, because sometimes, for all the books he reads, Zayn isn’t the best at finding the right words, but it’s okay, because Harry can find them for him.

Zayn nods, but he keeps his eyes on the table. “And I do, I have to do it to know.”

“But what if you hate it?” Harry winces at his own question, but he thinks Zayn needs to hear it, needs to find an answer for it.

Zayn shrugs. “Then I need to rethink everything, pretty much everything I’ve ever done,” he says, picking up his spoon again and leaning forwards. Two seconds later, and it’s like he didn’t just put his cards on the table right in front of Harry, for him to see, said _pick one_ and gave it to him, no trick, just treat. “And that’s on top of not being comfortable in front of like, a classroom of students.”

“Zayn…”

“I really fucking like this soup.”

It was a few years ago, long after everything came crashing down that Harry understood what it meant. _Enjoy it while it lasts. Don’t take anything for granted. Hope the still image of your mother laughing with her head thrown back will ease the blow and know, deeply and strongly, that it won’t._ The first time was a warning. Standing on a stage with Jeffrey’s hand on his shoulder was a clear sign of Harry’s future. Sammy was a tiny little thing in his shaking hands that meant _everything_. A small tiny thing that’s still too big for his heart. Maybe Zayn can be something good, something to put Harry on the right path. But Harry knows there’s more to it, there has to be.

“I remember the first time I watched this movie.” They're sitting on the couch, popcorn between them, beer in their hands, as _Pretty Woman_ plays on Harry’s television. “I thought I had a crush on Julia Roberts,” Harry admits selfishly, because he wants Zayn to think of him every time he sees her wide smile, her auburn curls. “I think I liked Richard Gere more though.” He chuckles as Zayn swats at his shoulder, but Zayn's laughing too, bright eyed and happy.

“Everyone loves Julia Roberts though.”

“Yeah, but,” Harry wiggles his eyebrows. “Richard Gere.”

“Oh, god,” Zayn groans, but he’s still laughing, still happy. “Never do that again.”

Harry bumps their knees together and turns back to the movie, sighing easily as Zayn settles back down next to him.

Harry digs deeper, wants to fill in all the empty parts that make up Zayn, every gap where the light escapes around his eyes, between his fingers. He doesn't know he's doing it at first, but then it's like a challenge, a game he's playing with himself and the possibility of Zayn not being there one day, sitting opposite him at lunch, next to him on the couch, in the booth at the pub. By the end of the month, Harry thinks if there’s a game, he's winning.

It makes Harry feel like he’s nearly full of the small pebbles, one small wet stone on top of the other. He's too busy to notice the foam gathering at his edges though, the clouds looming over his depth. He’s so busy collecting the broken shells and rounded glass shards, and looking at how the sun reflects against it, that he doesn't even notice it's started to rain.

Sometime along the way, he stops counting the days. He doesn’t think of it in terms of seeing Zayn or not seeing Zayn anymore, because there have been enough of them now that even if an entire day goes by where they only text a _tomorrow, today is busy_ , he doesn’t immediately end up at Nym’s for a cup of chocolate ice cream and a, “Have you ever wanted to kiss someone so much you feel like your brain is melting?” whined indignantly at her. Before he’s even finished, he knows there’s a swat coming at his head.

 _What about a movie?_ Harry waits for Sunday to text Zayn, because he thinks there’s a bigger chance he won’t already have other plans with Liam or someone else Harry would rather not think about, than during the weekend.

Harry tries not to think about it all, how it feels like he’s just waiting for something to happen and this interlude won’t mean anything as soon as he reaches the end goal. Like he’s braving a storm before it even reaches him, like this doesn’t mean anything, because he’s only warming up for the good stuff. But when he stops counting the days, Harry also realizes that he doesn’t know what that even is, what the good stuff is supposed to be, so he keeps savoring _this_. Keeps thinking _this is it, this is all you get, the movies you watch together and your favorite lunch place,_ because that’s safer, that doesn’t make him sleep any less at night.

_be there at 8 ish !! bringing food : )_

Harry doesn’t know how a TA that’s meant to start teaching a class about the importance of Shakespeare or something like that, ends up not knowing how to text punctuation properly, but Harry doesn’t mention it. He texts back, _Chinese, please_ without a smiley, because that makes it weird – Harry doesn’t know how Zayn doesn’t see it. He adds a single _x_ though, because he always does, and Zayn’s never said anything about it either.

Sometimes it feels like Harry isn’t the only one playing a game. They're never too far away from each other on the couch, but their limbs never touch, never more than a bump that makes Harry’s breath catch and move away so it doesn’t happen again. For a moment, during _Die Hard,_ Harry thinks Zayn is going to put his arm around his shoulders, so he embarrassingly straightens up to make it easier, but Zayn just ends up coughing in his fist and crossing his ankles on the coffee table. Harry sinks into the couch then and groans as soon as the first car explodes. He tries to forget about it for a week afterwards.

When it's Harry's turn to choose and he puts in _You’ve Got Mail,_ all he thinks as he watches Tom Hanks recite his lines is that he knows Zayn better than this – better than the way he shifts on the couch every time someone kisses on the TV in front of them. Harry's breathed the same air as he has and yet here they are, on the floor, slurping on noodles and admiring Meg Ryan's curls. By the end of the movie, he doesn't know if he's entitled to feel so much hatred for the characters that always end up together, but he does.

Harry's humming to himself, this playful swooping melody that makes him giddy some day in the middle of the week, because he can picture Mitch's fingers copying it on the guitar, Harry following with a mellow harmony on his own, and that's always a good sign. He doesn’t have any words for it yet, not since lately if Harry could be honest with himself for once, but it’ll come to him. It has to now that he’s started. Sooner or later.

It’s been getting harder and harder again, to sit with himself and find the words that fit together like he did three months ago. The melodies still hum around his ears, but Harry barely remembers his dreams anymore. All the stories he wants to tell don’t even scratch the surface of everything he doesn’t let himself feel, but he can’t bring it out, can’t be honest with himself yet, because he’s afraid of what he’ll find. It _not_ an issue though, not yet.

It might just be because he doesn't have to think before he’s reaching towards the cupboard above the sink for the glasses and the one on the left for the plates, the second drawer for the forks, before he’s dumping the foil into the trash next to the fridge, moving swiftly around the kitchen he hasn’t cooked in yet, but is familiar enough with to know where everything goes. It’s nothing, it doesn’t mean anything, but Harry’s sure he’s humming, because he never thought he’d get to unwrap takeaway he brought with him to Zayn’s. He didn’t think they’d ever be friends, didn’t think they could be. Still, he isn’t sure he wants to be.

There’s always an itch underneath his skin to kiss Zayn on his lips instead of his cheek every time he makes himself get up and go home, but it’s settled, it doesn’t burn like it did. Harry thinks he can control it now.

Nym called him a couple of days ago, said she hasn’t seen Harry in _forever_ , and he promised to come by during the week, but it’s okay. He’s fine. He wouldn’t be spending so much time with Zayn if they weren’t friends. And Nym’s always loved exaggerating anyway, it’s why she and Louis are perfect for each other.

Just as Harry unloads the takeout containers onto the plates Zayn admitted to never using before Harry had to physically make him, he glances over his shoulder to find him.

Instead of in front of the TV paused on the first second of a movie with his nose in a book and his glasses on, Zayn’s dragged his armchair to the window, so Harry finds him with his hand barely hanging outside in the air as smoke twirls back into his living room.

“Oh.” Harry straightens up. He doesn't think he can take the surprised expression off his face.

“Do you mind?” Zayn asks, like this isn't his apartment and he can’t do whatever he wants in it, but then he's inhaling on the cigarettes, his cheeks hollow, and Harry feels like he needs to sit down as well.

“No. No, I mean…” He’s just never seen Zayn smoke before. Not before or after they finish their lunch or in between movies or even when they manage to invite someone to sit with them at a bar for a couple of hours. It’s always been just the lingering scent and the _be right back_ when he disappears outside with Louis. Harry’s never asked to join. “I'm gonna say they're bad for you, but, you know. That's it. I don't mind.”

Zayn smiles as he inhales another smoke. _God_ , Harry wishes it wouldn't look so hot. He wishes he wouldn’t remember the taste of it either. Or maybe he doesn’t.

“I'm trying to quit, it's just–” Zayn pauses, shaking his head out as he thumbs over the end of it and lets the ashes dance in the air. He doesn't need to finish the thought though, because Harry already knows what he's going to say, but he lets him anyway. Zayn probably needs to say it out loud. “It's more stressful than I thought it was going to be.”

“Which is saying something,” Harry adds with what he hopes is a soft smile.

Zayn chuckles. “Yeah, exactly. It, I don't know,” he mumbles with his eyes on the cigarette, “It makes me feel a bit saner. It shouldn’t, but it does.”

“I get that.” Harry tried it once, twice, kept at it until he couldn't walk a flight of stairs without feeling each step settle in his lungs with a painful tug. It’s not like he needed his voice for singing then, not like he needs it now, but he quit while he still could.

Zayn smiles back at him, finishing with another pull before he’s flicking it over the ledge.

“Thanks.”

“If you’re gonna be smoking though,” Harry tries to give him his most serious scowl, “You’re gonna invest in an ashtray.”

Laughing with his head thrown back, Zayn gets up and walks to the couch with a huff, sits down with his legs crossed and arms stretched out towards one of the plates in Harry’s hands. “I can do that.”

“Good. Now, how are we gonna split the dumplings? Because I think it’s fair I get four and you get the three. Thoughts?”

Harry feels something warm bubble in his chest as Zayn keeps laughing and shaking his head. But the bubbles practically explode when he takes three and shoves the rest of the dumplings over to Harry.

“Whatever you want.”

Harry’s never been so happy over dumplings.

“So.” He starts once they’ve both had a bite. He doesn’t know if Zayn wants to talk about this, but he should. One way of doing that is to make him, Harry’s learned. “Tomorrow.”

“Mmm.” Mouth full of food, Zayn doesn’t say anything else. He even picks up the remote and presses play on _Sleepless in Seattle._

“You ready for tomorrow?” Harry persists over the music. He wishes it didn’t feel like pulling teeth. “Got the lesson plans all done?”

“Yeah, all done.”

“ _Zayn_.”

“Let’s just watch the movie, okay?”

Harry lets them watch exactly four minutes of it before he pauses it again and turns on the couch so he can look at Zayn better. Groaning, Zayn rolls his eyes and puts his plate on the coffee table. But Harry doesn’t say anything, he just watches and waits. The line of Zayn’s neck as he throws his head back against the couch is appealing enough for him to stay right where they are for days. Harry can be patient when he needs to be.

“I have a class at nine tomorrow. First one.”

Harry knows that, but he doesn’t mention it. “And you’re ready?” he asks tentatively instead, dragging out his words even slower than usually.

Zayn blinks up at the ceiling one, two, three times. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” His teeth in his bottom lip, Zayn hums in his throat as Harry keeps his eyes on him, on the curve of his eyelashes, his throat as he swallows. “But I am. I think I am.”

“How many people signed up?”

Zayn shrugs. “Fifteen.”

Harry thinks of his own classes, the few he managed to go to, but he doesn’t know what that means, good or bad or barely anyone or a full room. “Fifteen is…” he trails off, letting Zayn decide.

“It’s good, I guess. Could be more, could be less.” Sometimes, Zayn really isn’t good with his words. “I think it’ll be good.”

“And, um,” Harry starts, but now he’s embarrassed, because he doesn’t think he’s ever asked, and Zayn’s never just told him either. He hopes he hasn’t. “What class is it?”

The question seems to be easier to answer. “Poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to hum and think of what to say to next. He doesn’t know enough to make a witty remark. Or say anything at all.

But it’s okay, because Zayn chuckles and finally straightens up, looking at Harry with his wide eyes and a smile that’s all teeth and tongue. “A lot of ‘to be or not to be’, things like that. Some, ‘look in thy heart and write’.”

“I like that one,” Harry says with a smile of his own. It’s hard to forget how smart Zayn is, but it’s easy to let it slip his thoughts when he’s biting his bottom lip raw with worry. He hopes the students see it tomorrow, sit in awe as he reads poetry and talks about Hamlet. They should.

“Philip Sidney,” Zayn nods and sighs. “Can we watch the movie now?”

Harry picks up the remote and presses play. “Call me when you’re done tomorrow. I’ll take you out for a drink.”

“Hmm.” Zayn stretches out to grab his plate again and when he sits down, he’s closer to Harry than he was when they sat down. It’s not a change, nothing they haven’t done before, sitting close enough to share warmth and mumbled commentary when Tom Hanks _doesn’t get it_. So it doesn’t really start.

It just happens, once, the first time, and then it keeps happening. But it doesn’t really start, because it never does with Harry. Sometimes there’s a pause that hovers, makes him shiver and blink slowly, but there’s not even that this time.

They’re walking towards their _Secret_ lunch cafe from the car, because Harry couldn’t be bothered to drive and Zayn offered to pick him up when Zayn suddenly stops and smiles at the woman walking towards them. A sudden rush of panic washes over Harry’s spine at the sight of their smiles, but it settles, still hot, down at his feet when Zayn says, “Claudia, how are you?” with a tone of voice Harry recognizes.

She says something back, probably, “Busy, busy, you know how it is,” in the typical coworker way.

“Harry, this is Claudia, another TA at the department. And this is my, um… My,” Zayn scratches at the back of his neck. “My- My Harry, I guess.” He laughs alongside her as Harry shakes her hand and the words _my Harry my Harry my Harry_ ring in his ears. As they let their hands fall back at their sides, Harry doesn’t think he remembers her name.

Zayn keeps close to him as he talks with the woman. They really must not be anything other than stop-in-the-street-to-catch-up-acquaintances, because they’re waving at each other already, Harry joining a bit late and then they’re walking in their own directions and Zayn’s asking about what he’s thinking of ordering for lunch.

Even after they’ve eaten and Zayn drops him off at Gemma’s, all he hears is _my Harry._

It’s not a start of anything though, nothing that should have Harry sitting on the counter in his kitchen at four in the morning, trying to remember how Zayn said it, how he stuttered it out, trying to think of something else. And how in the end, out of everything else, Zayn could only think of Harry as his.

They don't talk about it. Harry guesses it’s easier that way, pretending as if there’s nothing to talk about, nothing there but friendly hugs and pecks on cheeks they deal out to the rest of their friends. If they don't mention the hands on their thighs or the rough twists of their tongues, if Harry doesn't breathe a word about how Zayn always bites his throat right before he's about to come, then it's not there and it can't ruin the rest of what they do have, the parts they talk about constantly. It feels like shoveling sand into his eyes, but it doesn’t hurt, not after a while, not like it did at first.

Zayn invites Harry to a poetry reading, huffs out that it isn’t as boring as it sounds, “Besides, it's in a bar, so it won't be that bad if you have a drink.”

“Or five,” Harry jokes, but agrees to be there at ten to eight, so they can get a good table.

And it's good, it's nice, uncomfortable when Harry feels like he has to talk about his day in the studio because Zayn asks, and he lies about standing in the booth, but adds the part about the marvelous lunch of cup noodles Zayn wasn’t there to taste, because he was busy being an overeager TA, waiting around for office hours none of the students showed up for. Zayn laughs and tells him about _Midsummer Night's Dream,_ about Puck baring a frightening resemblance to Louis and about chinks. They laugh together, drinking their beer until Zayn goes to get them cranberry vodkas and Harry swallows down the bitter taste twice as fast as Zayn does.

He doesn't manage to sink into the words spilling from the stage, powerful voices carrying them to his ears, but not quite settling as he keeps his eyes on the side of Zayn's face. For the duration of an hour and a half, Harry tries to come up with words to describe the slope of Zayn’s nose, but by the end of it, he doesn’t remember a single one.

Because then, Harry is stumbling over his legs with an arm around his shoulders, as he tries to walk to the bar to order another drink.

Zayn's raising his hand at the bartender and Harry's so happy he doesn't have to do it that he goes a bit sideways and leans fully into Zayn's side. The arm around his shoulder tightens and pulls him further in.

“Two tequilas,” Harry hears Zayn order and he hums, clacking his tongue. He hasn't had tequila in a while.

“I like tequila.”

“Last drinks boys.”

“Hey," Harry drawls and looks up at Zayn's smile. “Why is he being mean?” _And why are you smiling at me like that?_ Harry bites into his lip to see if he feels it. After about three seconds of wondering where his lip has wandered off to, he decides he’s drunk.

“Because we're drunk, H.”

“But... Tequila?”

“Just one, then I’m calling you two a cab.”

“Zayn,” Harry whines, “He’s being mean again.” Harry sticks his tongue out at the bartender who's three heads taller than him. When he walks away laughing, Harry's pretty sure he has a new crush.

“Up for it?” Zayn asks with a shot glass in one hand and a lemon in the other. Somehow, he doesn't have a third arm around Harry, which is just a big fat shame.

"Always,” he sends Zayn something close to a smirk.

They tip their heads back, letting the burn of it settle down their throats and then their stomachs, warmth spreading in a wave all the way to the tops of their heads.

It feels like Harry barely manages to lower his glass before he’s being led onto the back seats of a car with a hand on the small of his back. He huffs out a hot breath and pushes all of his hair away from his face and the hand is still there, solid and warm, keeping him close to Zayn as they sit and watch the pretty lights pass by the car.

“I can’t feel my lips,” Harry declares, because he thinks Zayn should know that he’s trying to but can’t. Sinking his teeth into it again, there’s nothing, just his tongue against the back of teeth and then a hand on his cheek, a thumb at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t,” Zayn says as Harry tries to look down at the thumb, but goes a little cross-eyed because of it. He chuckles and looks up to tell Zayn, but when he does, Zayn is already there, seeing it all.

“Why is your face like that?” Harry puts his hand against Zayn’s cheek.

“Like what?”

 _Fond._ “I don’t know.”

He feels Zayn’s smile underneath his fingertips if it’s possible, Harry doesn’t know if it is – he just knows he’d rather taste it. That’s all he really wants. He looks down and thinks _no_ , just _no_ , and kisses the thumb that’s still so close to his mouth instead, because he needs to kiss something. _God_ , it’s been so long since he’s kissed anyone, since someone’s kissed him.

“How long?”

“Too long,” Harry sighs. He has to close his eyes if he wants to remember, but then he does, with an image that sends a shiver down his spine and the song that always plays in the background of it beating in his fingertips like it’s a part of him.

He opens his eyes and Zayn is so close, Harry doesn’t know if he’s still remembering or not. He might be, Harry thinks, this might just be a memory, as he licks over his lips and finally feels it’s there, right where it’s supposed to be, before he leans forward and touches it against Zayn’s, wondering if he’s right there too.

Harry thinks he can hear a sharp inhale, thinks he can feel it too, as he hums and presses himself closer to it, so he can move his lips and part them and swipe just the tip of his tongue against Zayn’s, because it’s so much better than what he remembers.

“Harry,” he feels Zayn say against his mouth. He tries to nod, but he wants to kiss him instead, so he does, sinks his teeth in Zayn’s bottom lip instead and swears he feels it somewhere in his own. “Harry,” Zayn’s saying and he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t be talking right now. “Harry, we’re here.”

“Mmm, what?” He leans away from Zayn just far enough to see his building through the window and the driver patiently waiting for them out the corner of his eye. “Oh, right.”

“Come on.”

Harry struggles with his key at the first door and doesn’t let Zayn take over, because he’s had almost as much to drink and he’ll mess it up just as many times, even though Zayn doesn’t agree, but he’s leaning against the side of it in a way that means Harry is absolutely right. But when they stumble up the stairs and down the hallway and get to Harry’s door, he’s the one leaning and Zayn is asking for the key that is back in the depths of his pocket.

“The light,” Harry says as he closes his eyes, tries to make the floor stay still.

“No, the key, H. I need your key.”

“Urgh,” Harry stands up straight and then nearly tumbles to the ground, but he manages to kiss Zayn before it happens and groan into his mouth, because he doesn’t get it. “The spare key is on top of the light.”

Harry doesn’t catch what Zayn says, because he’s too busy plastering himself over his back, but he gets it this time and finds the key before he’s opening the door and ushering Harry inside.

“Shoes.”

“Table.”

“What?”

“I don’t get this game,” Harry grumbles as he dumps his boots towards a corner and then laughs when he hears Zayn laughing. He always wants to hear him laughing.

“Come on drunko, you need to go to bed.”

“Mhm,” he agrees. Harry undoes the three buttons of his shirt and slips it off his shoulders. “You too.” He’s really not that drunk, not so drunk he doesn’t notice Zayn squeezing his eyes shut or not saying no. Harry stands there, ready to put up a fight when he sees Zayn make up his mind. He isn’t that drunk.

“Come on, let’s go.”

They don’t stumble towards Harry’s bedroom and Zayn doesn’t pretend like he doesn’t know where it is, either. He flicks on the light at the door just long enough for them to take their clothes off and leave them in a pile on Harry’s chair and then flicks it back off as they slip under the covers.

“Do you mind if-” Harry starts tentatively now that the world isn’t spinning in front of his eyes. They’re lying so that they’re facing each other, but there’s enough room between them for another person. And Harry knows he only has his underwear on, knows it’s more than he usually wears to bed, and he can feel the resignation vibrating from Zayn’s skin, but he wants to ask, and tonight feels like the time to do it. Finally let himself have it for a second. “Do you mind?” Harry asks again as he inches closer to Zayn, watching him blink as he settles his palm over his hip. “Is this okay?”

Zayn hums and closes his eyes, and he doesn’t want to, but Harry takes it as the only answer he’s going to get. He isn’t expecting anything more as he closes his eyes as well, and lets himself breathe finally. But he gets an inch from Zayn too, until their feet are tangles and his nose is almost pressed against Harry’s chest.

It’s all Harry gets at first, but it’s enough for right now.

It’s gets to be almost too much in the morning though, when he wakes up and his tongue tastes like death in his mouth, his head feeling like it’s been kicked a good couple of times with a metal tipped boot and as Harry moves his feet, even his legs don’t feel like they should. He groans into the pillow, because he should when he remembers how much he drank and _god._ He should never ever drink again. Harry shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions when he’s three sheets to the wind, especially not about where to put his mouth, and _especially not_ if it’s onto Zayn’s mouth.

He forgoes groaning and screams into the pillow instead, thinks it’s a miracle he isn’t crying his heart out at the rate last night comes back to him. With a bright light that makes him whimper, the last memory actually flashes: tangled feet and hot breath against his chest.

Harry shift on the bed and hums. Lifting his head isn’t an option right now, _it isn’t_ , so Harry tries to _feel_ his surroundings. He doesn’t know if there’s an added weight on the mattress, doesn’t feel like he’s dipping to the right side of the bed, doesn’t feel like there’s anyone next to him. But he doesn’t want to chance it, not with the noises he’s just been making.

Harry can’t let himself enjoy the blissful hope that Zayn’s already left though, can’t bring himself to enjoy the thought of anything with the pounding in his head, so he moves his arm, just a little, just to feel out the other side of the bed carefully enough. Once he manages to sweep it in a half circle without bumping into anything except a pillow that makes him jump, Harry manages to lift himself up with a wince and a groan.

And then he doesn’t know if he’s actually relieved that Zayn left or not. Except he does and the feeling is just an added bonus to an already painful headache.

“Of course,” he mumbles under his breath as he drags himself out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. “Of course he left, because you were embarrassing. _Stupid_.”

Harry turns on the shower and keeps it as hot as he can, because he’s never letting himself enjoy anything ever again. He doesn’t deserve good things, because he doesn’t know what to do with them. Always breaking everything, every toy he ever got - a second of playing and then the head was ripped off the neck, the wheels detached from every car, even the cards ripped at the edges. Harry doesn’t deserve good things.

As he wraps a towel around his waist, Harry wants there to be another post-it on the fridge, right next to the first one, with the words _Last night was awful, never call me again, forget my number, forget my name_ , written on it in block capital letters that’ll hurt his eyes. _Good_ , Harry thinks, patting to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. _You don’t deserve to have Zayn’s number_.

He’s just about to tear a filter in half, because maybe he should suffer through the entire day without even a drop of caffeine, maybe down another tequila since he was so happy to do it last night when he hears a soft groan behind him.

“Um…” Harry’s standing in the kitchen with the paper still in his hands when Zayn's head pops up from the couch.

He’s rubbing at his eyes, scowling with them closed at the wall in front of him, and all Harry thinks is _now I know what you look like when you’ve just woken up as well_. He tries to not be selfish about it, to not tuck it behind his ear right away, but he can’t help himself. Harry never could help himself.

“You kicked me out of bed,” Zayn rasps without opening his eyes. He’s tucking his chin over the back of the couch, leaning his arms over it, laying half off of it.

Harry gasps, “I did _not_.”

“Mhm,” Zayn tries to nod. “You _actually_ kicked me. So I came here.”

“I did no such thing,” Harry’s murmuring under his breath as he throws the filter to the trash and gets another one, handling it carefully before he shuffles spoonfuls of coffee into it.

“I’d like some coffee.” Zayn says it so softly, Harry almost doesn’t hear over the sputtering of the machine drip drip dripping into the pot. “If you’re making it.”

Harry nods. There’s an itch at his bare back, right between his shoulder blades, like someone’s trailing a nail over his skin that now feels too hot, too exposed, so he knows Zayn sees it. Suddenly, Harry is very aware that he’s still only in a towel and even if he can’t see him, he knows Zayn’s opened his eyes now, is trailing them over Harry if he isn’t losing his mind just yet and the desperation crawling over the back of his throat hasn’t taken over completely yet.

When he turns around to lean back against the counter and make sure - he has to make sure, even as he grips the knot right underneath his navel - Harry isn’t wrong. Zayn’s still where he was, hanging over the couch. He isn’t even meeting Harry’s eyes, even if he can now, if Harry wants him to. He’s looking at Harry’s feet, dragging his eyes over his legs until he reaches the end of the towel and then skips his middle to land somewhere that doesn’t quite reach Harry’s eyes.

“How’s your head?” Zayn asks, tilting his own to the side and since he doesn’t groan like Harry wants to do for him, it doesn’t look like he’s drank as much as Harry did. He remembers Zayn actually paying attention to the poetry instead of the vodka last night. That might be the reason why. “Hungover?”

“Not too bad,” Harry lies with a shrug.

“You were pretty drunk last night.” Zayn finally trails his eyes to Harry’s. And even though Harry has to swallow and cross his arms before he makes himself say anything, he gets out, “I wasn’t that drunk,” while they keep looking at each other. He’s trying to tell Zayn something, he just hopes Zayn understands it. “Not _that_ drunk.”

Zayn hums and focuses his eyes on his fingers playing with the rough leather of the couch instead. It’s frustrating, because Harry thinks he remembers, is pretty sure he didn’t make up the sighs or the broken off sound of his name that keeps seeping into his head with a thick ebb and flow. Harry can’t be making it all up in his head. He wouldn’t let himself do that.

The sputtering stops and they’re left looking in their own directions as the silence grows and grows until Harry turns again and gets two cups out of the cupboard.

He doesn’t regret it, he knows that much, even if he is frowning down at the regular milk swirling into Zayn’s coffee before he pours himself rice milk into his own. Trying to remember when he started keeping milk he doesn’t even drink in his fridge instead of waiting for Zayn to say something like _it can’t happen again_ that would make Harry’s insides twist or _we’re just friends, Harry, just_ _friends_ , that would probably crush him into a pile of dust, doesn’t help to settle something bubbling hot in his chest. It only adds fuel to the fire there. But at least if it all goes up in flames, Harry thinks distantly, crashes and burns around them until they’re standing on nothing but hot ash, it’ll be with fireworks. And Harry’s never seen that in slow motion. It might be worth it in the end.

“Here.” He holds out the cup for Zayn, who turns on the couch to make more room and take it between his hands. Without blowing on it, Zayn takes a sip and without looking or hearing him wince, Harry knows he’s burnt his tongue.

Smacking his lips together, and without letting Harry have a moment to _think, he needs to think_ , Zayn says a quiet, “You’ve been with your share of people, right?”

“What?” Harry’s head snaps to the side, and he didn’t mean to look at Zayn yet, because he didn’t know if he could, but he has to, just to see if Zayn is being serious. “I like people,” he says sharply, because Zayn can’t be doing this. He can’t be serious. They just woke up. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Harry can’t say it without a shrug though, because he doesn’t know if he believes it himself. And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? Harry knows there’s nothing wrong with it, but he wishes somewhere deep and dark and down, where he can’t see or hear, and everything has a pleasant blur around the edge, that he’d have made one of those people stay. Ariana, Jason, Paul, Jane, and the rest he doesn’t remember, because they didn’t give Harry any reason to. Maybe he wouldn’t be so desperate now, maybe if time had stopped for one of them, if he wasn't so young when he met Ari, or so unreasonably easy with Jason, letting him do whatever he wanted - even if for weeks at a time, that wasn’t Harry. Maybe then, Harry would know what to do now.

There’s nothing wrong with it, liking the warmth people bring, but Harry wishes he didn’t know that sometimes. Harry never liked being alone, so he made a point in never being too far from someone, a phone call away, a smirk, a touch of a fingertip to his wrist that told him everything he needed to know. It was always _you trust too easily, you let everyone in, what about settling down for a while, Harry?_ But it was never, _why?_

And it’s only because Zayn doesn’t stop looking at him, isn’t breaking the touch of his eyes on Harry’s that he hears himself add, “You’ve been with like, what, one?” Maybe Harry didn’t have to say it so bitterly, since he knows that isn’t even true, but it doesn’t stop him.

“No,” Zayn says much more quietly. He probably doesn’t even know what to say besides that. He’s always been so bad with words.

“No?” Harry really looks at him then, even puts his cup down, like he’s going to hold his face and try to feel what Zayn means. Harry goes on instead, pushing where he knows he shouldn’t. “Two, three?”

“Enough.”

 _Have you been with enough people or have you had enough of me, Zayn?_ Harry swallows and makes himself breathe. “But you think I’ve been with too many? Is that it?”

“Didn’t say that, did I?”

“You _implied_ it,” Harry murmurs, shaking his hair over his eyes. _God_ , he needs to have another drink, he shouldn’t be doing this with fog covering up most of his thoughts. Harry won’t feel bad. He won’t. There’s no reason he should.

“What I _wanted_ to say, is that you’re always so fast about it, which I think I’ve said before.” The fact it was better received last time hangs in the air between them. It wasn’t about Zayn and Harry then, it was different. _You weren’t you when you said it then, and I wasn’t me and we weren’t us._ “And I’m the opposite,” Zayn goes on, his shoulder slumping slightly as he shifts in his seat. He isn’t moving away though. Harry doesn’t miss that. “I get… I don’t, like, just give myself away like that.”

It’s a rush, a thrill, like lighting a sparkler, quick and explosive, fingers too close to the flame, but it doesn’t last long. It always burns out before he wants it to. Harry doesn’t say that, though, just shrugs and ruffles his hair to the side. He doesn’t _like_ giving himself away like that either, but it’s fun sometimes, better than the alternative.

“I don’t do that. Now. I don’t do that, now.”

Zayn sighs a heavy, “I know,” and then says, “I wasn’t saying that you do,” softly, like he’s afraid Harry will fly away if his voice is louder. He is made of feathers more than he is built to stand and fight, but he’s staying where he is, looking at Zayn with his eyebrows raised, hoping Zayn can get to his point faster than Harry can make his wings ruffle.

“Then what are you saying, Zayn?” He tries to implore him to just come out and say it, whatever he’s running circles around.

“I can’t-” Zayn starts, then he shakes his head and Harry thinks he’s ready to throttle him if he doesn’t say it in the next two seconds. He’s counting down in his head, _two, one_ , but then Zayn says it all at once, in a big rush. “I don’t want a relationship right now. I don’t _need_ one.”

Harry frowns. It’s really all he can do, because it’s so frustrating that even when Zayn finally finds the words, Harry doesn’t know what to do with them. “Okay?” he drags out carefully. He doesn’t know why, but it’s like they can talk about anything except this. This they can’t make any sense of. Harry thought it was just him, but maybe Zayn tries not to remember all those months ago, how they stumbled through Harry’s hallway and then fell into his bed together. Or how careful they were last night, like they were different last night.

“Okay,” Zayn parrots him with a raised eyebrow. “So…”

Harry has a headache, his stomach is turning and Zayn is looking at him so expectantly, he wants to burst out of his skin and scream into his pillow again. He’s never been so frustrated and tired at the same time before.

He knows Zayn doesn’t want a relationship, Harry knew that already. He’s pretty sure they wouldn’t be sitting here, having this conversation if he wanted one. And it’s not like Zayn doesn’t know that Harry knows all this. He groans again and throws his head against the back of the couch.

“I think I might be too hung-over for this.” _Too sober, maybe_.

There’s a blissful moment of silence that follows, that Harry wants to wrap himself around and just stay in for a few days, until his head is clear and his stomach stops twisting painfully.

Just as he’s about to let himself drift off slowly, Zayn murmurs, “I’m really not good at this,” quietly, like he doesn’t think Harry will hear him. And for a second, he wishes he hadn’t. Harry just wants to go back to the bar yesterday and think about what he’s doing, go back to the cab and keep himself to his side of the backseat. He wants to take everything back, except maybe the kiss. Harry wants to keep that for himself.

“What?” he hums and lets his head loll to the side so he can open an eye and look at Zayn.

There’s a frown between his eyebrows, deep like a canyon that Harry wants to smooth out with the tip of his finger. He wants to give Zayn anything he wants, everything he ever asks for, Harry wants to be there to give it to him. It’s pathetic and a new low, even for Harry, but he can’t help himself. He’s waiting, Harry wants to tell him that. That he knows there’s something more to Zayn, something worth time stopping, so Harry could take it all in before it warped and thrust forward. Something special, something big. So whatever this is, whatever Zayn is asking for now, Harry’s already thinking of ways to get it for him.

Looking at Harry with something other than frustration or confusion, he suddenly doesn’t recognize Zayn’s frown. He feels like he should make himself smaller, tuck into himself more, so he shifts his legs and pulls at his towel a little, hoping to preserve some modesty. If Harry has any left.

“I just-” Zayn cuts himself off with a shake of his head, groaning down at his lap and huffing out a breath while steadying his eyes on Harry for a long second that stretches from here to there, like an elastic band. It snaps before Harry knows it, before he even hears it, Zayn is climbing into his lap with another heavy breath that drowns every other noise. His hands are shaking, both of their hands are shaking as Zayn moves up and then shifts his legs until he’s happy with how he’s sitting on the edge of Harry’s knees. And Harry sits there perfectly still, his head back, fingers trembling above Zayn’s hips as he seems to settle, at the same time as something flicks on fire inside of Harry. It’s - Harry doesn’t know what to think anymore.

“I don’t want a relationship,” Zayn says again, with less of a frown and more of a set line of his mouth, nearly pouting. It’s always been unsettling, the plush of Zayn’s lip and how far away from Harry’s it always seems to, so painfully out of reach. But maybe it’s here now, maybe Harry won’t have to breathe with only the memory of it for months and months again. Zayn’s looking at Harry, and sometimes, Harry thinks, he sees right through him. “But I want to kiss you.”

“ _Oh_.”

Gently as ever, like he did last night, Zayn cups Harry’s cheek with his hand and runs his thumb over his lip. He wants to lick it, Harry wants to kiss it. Sometimes, Harry wishes he could see through him too.

Leaning forward until he’s a breath away, Zayn asks a tentative, “Can I?” Like Harry would ever say no. Like Harry could ever hold himself still for more than a second before he’s leaning closer and kissing Zayn, _God_ , he’s kissing Zayn.

And maybe they shouldn’t be this tentative about it, not with last night and months and months ago, nothing to be careful about, since it’s nothing they haven’t done before. But they haven’t, Harry realizes with a sigh, because he’s never just _felt_ Zayn’s lips against his, no stampede trampling over his heart, no flashes of red behind his eyes as he keeps them closed. Still Harry’s breath hitches, because this is what it must be like to _just kiss_ Zayn, every day, first thing in the morning and last thing before falling asleep. Maybe there is a gentle stampede somewhere in his chest after all.

Harry wants to keep it like this, slow and patient, with his lips against Zayn’s in a soft kiss that he feels in his fingertips, because he wants to keep himself calm and present and right where he is. But as soon as he lowers his hands to the jut Zayn’s hips, just to keep him there too, even just barely tasting what Zayn feels like in his hands like this, Harry wills himself to wake up, to _get with it_ , because they took _so long_ to get to this part, where it’s okay to just kiss and where Zayn keeps pressing himself closer and twisting his fingers into Harry’s hair to tug at it gently.

It’s with a start that Harry realizes there’s nothing calm about it, that this is another pebble in the palm of his hand, and a moan that he can’t keep from slipping when Zayn’s hips press down and forward onto his, suddenly, like he’s just realized the same. In about a second, Harry’s sure he won’t even remember his own name.

“I didn’t-” Zayn mumbles into the kiss, mouthing over Harry’s cheek and down to his jaw, leaving his words there. “I didn’t brush my teeth.”

“Don’t care,” Harry rushes to say as he lets his neck dip to the side to let Zayn snip at the skin there, before he’s kissing Zayn again, deep and dirty and tasting the sleep on the tip of Zayn’s tongue. And he should care, somewhere in his head he remembers caring about licking into someone’s mouth without them brushing their teeth first, but right now, Harry can’t bring himself to.

When he manages to make a first coherent thought, Harry spreads his fingers over Zayn’s slim hips, following the curve of them until he’s slipping his hands over the small of his back and down to cup his ass, either just because Zayn doesn’t swat him away or because he can bring him closer like this, Harry isn’t entirely sure. It might just be the way Zayn hums into the kiss and moves with it.

Zayn moans when Harry digs his fingers into the flesh, feeling how Zayn’s jeans strain underneath his fingers, and as greedy as ever, Harry swallows it down. _There, it’s mine now, no one else gets to have it, at least not this one, at least not now._ Harry knows he's being selfish, taking what doesn't belong to him, but Zayn sinks his teeth into his lip and maybe he takes the gasps right out of Harry's mouth as his own as well. Maybe they can both be selfish for a change, maybe it will balance out in the end.

At least that’s what Harry thinks is going through his head, because when Zayn’s fingers untangle from his hair and move over his chest, thumbs pressing into his nipples, Harry thinks the world shifts under his feet and everything tilts until he’s upside down.

“I love your nipples,” Zayn says against his mouth again.

“I know,” Harry groans back and wants to kiss him, keep kissing him, never wants to stop kissing him, but Zayn’s moving away just out of Harry’s reach. It’s the most frustrating thing to ever happen, Harry swears.

“They’re my favorite.”

Their foreheads are pressed together as they’re both looking down at Zayn’s fingers pinch Harry’s nipples and pressing into them right after. They both hear Harry hiss, but they don’t do anything about it. Just keep looking as Zayn presses his finger against one and then the other. Harry wants to say _I know_ again, but he’s enthralled.

“I wanna…” Zayn says distractedly and Harry almost asks ‘What?’ until he feels Zayn moving and ducking down and then he’s biting around his nipple and Harry very nearly melts into the couch. “Mmm,” Zayn hums, pleased, flattening his tongue against it before he’s moving to the other one. Harry wants to say he has two more, that they can stay here doing this as long as Zayn wants, but Zayn’s fingers find them without direction, which is as close to heaven as Harry’s ever going to get.

A lapful of Zayn and his mouth on his nipple is it – this is nirvana in the purest form. Harry still wants to kiss him again though, lay him back against the couch, on the floor, so they have more room and lick every part of Zayn in return, until all he tastes is _Zayn Zayn Zayn_ and a faint curling of smoke and sleep.

“I have to leave in thirty minutes,” Zayn mumbles against his chest, and Harry faintly thinks he can feel his hands slipping lower, but he doesn’t look down to check. He’s acutely aware of the fact he’s in only a towel while Zayn is in his jeans and shirt again.

“What? Why?”

“Class at ten.”

Harry tucks his fingers underneath the hem of Zayn’s jeans. He can’t believe Zayn put them back on to sleep on the couch. He can’t believe he kicked him out of bed and he still stayed. “Skip it,” he mumbles back as he tries to pry the fabric down without having to deal with the button or the zipper.

“I can’t _skip it_. I’m the one teaching it.”

“Call in sick,” Harry tries not to laugh when Zayn groans and straightens up, hands on his hips as he stares down at Harry. It’s whiplash, going from hung-over to regretful to frustrated and half-hard to this, with a persistent thud in his head still lingering at the edges of his brain. Somehow it all becomes completely irrelevant when Zayn licks over his lips and Harry sees how red they are.

“I can’t.”

“Why?” Harry asks and pouts only a little, but he’s really only playing along, because sooner or later Zayn needs to realize they could be doing much better things with twenty-eight minutes left.

“Because I’m not sick,” Zayn huffs out, pushing his hair back. Harry should tell Zayn to grow it out.

Instead, Harry bucks his hips up and, “But you’re hard,” counters easily. He offers an easy smile that might sway Zayn.

He ends up narrowing his eyes and saying a stern, “Better make it fast, then,” that Harry laughs at. The world tilts again, and it might just be alright. Harry might actually end up being okay. He still can’t wrap his head around what’s happening, but it might really be okay in the end.  Harry thinks it will be, might even be hoping for it.

Keeping their mouths close, they’re not quite able to coordinate a kiss as Harry’s towel finally slips open and Zayn undoes his own zipper, because Harry’s still trying to push his jeans down with only his force of will.

Zayn gasps and Harry groans when they get their hands around each other, tight and rough and too dry for Harry’s liking, but it’ll do. For now, anything will do, and then Zayn can leave to teach his class and come right back over to do it again with lots of lube and maybe a couple of fingers too. Harry tells him as much and then watches as Zayn closes his eyes and whimpers against his cheek.

Harry tries to keep it separate from last time. He doesn’t want to compare or contrast or wonder if Zayn’s doing anything differently for any other reason than because Harry can’t stop squirming underneath him as Zayn tells him to go, “Faster, just–” and then falls silent with his  mouth open. But Harry wants to prove a point when he hears himself pant, nearly wheezing with it, when he throws his head back right as Zayn cups his balls with his other hand, like he’s doing the same thing.

Zayn stutters on a breath and then he’s sinking his teeth into Harry’s throat and Harry’s ready to scream with it when he feels Zayn come over his fingers, hot and sticky, and pulling Harry off a couple more times, because he’s never been impressingly fast, sometimes frustratingly slow, before he’s coming too, giving away all of his breath.

“That was–” Harry starts to say, but he can’t settle on one singular thing. It was amazing, he thinks he’s slipping out of his skin, and maybe he’s on fire, or he might just want to do this again and he hopes Zayn will too.

“It was,” Zayn murmurs into his neck, before he licks over the skin right underneath his mouth. Harry shivers and tries to push him away while still not letting him go. “But I have to go.”

“You have five more minutes.”

“You’ll need another shower.” Harry thinks Zayn snickers, and as soon as he looks down at the sticky mess on his stomach, he’s sure he does.

“Ugh.” It's the best complain he can muster, because if anyone asked, he’d tell them he doesn’t mind, that he wants to make a mess on Zayn just as much. Maybe he will next time.

With that thought, Zayn lifts himself up and says, “We should do this again. Sometimes,” and shrugs one shoulder in a decidedly uncool way. He tucks himself back into his jeans and then scratches at the back of his neck before he can stop himself.

“We should,” Harry says instead of mentioning a sharp twist in his stomach that he’s sure is just the tequila from last night.

“Do you, I mean, I know it’s not what you-”

Harry shakes his head and cuts him off. “We should do it again. Sometime,” he repeats so he doesn’t have to hear the rest of what Zayn has to say. It doesn’t matter anyway. Zayn knows and Harry knows and this is okay. Harry thinks he can live with this. It’s just another step they can climb together. It can be another start, even if time didn’t stop to announce it. Harry can pretend like it did.

With a kiss on his cheek that is less electrifying that the rest have been, Zayn gets up and off him, and Harry only whines a little with the missing weight on his lap, but he doesn’t say anything else otherwise. He lets Zayn clean up in the bathroom and then kiss his cheek again, before he’s closing the door behind him and leaning his back against it with a promise to go to Casey’s tomorrow night.

It isn’t until he’s showered and clean, mouth washed and a fresh pair of underwear on that he lets himself crawl into bed and fall onto the pillow with his eyes closed. And then, without even meaning to, he pushes his face into the plush and the smell hits him. Sharp and sweet, with a taste of something cold and spicy, it fills his pores with one breath and Harry almost breaks like a twig, in halves and halves and halves, over and over and into infinity, as he keeps his nose there, keeps breathing Zayn in.

Maybe he wants to, is what flitters through his head. Maybe Harry wants to fall apart in that moment, maybe that's all he's felt like doing for longer than not. So he gives himself the opportunity, right there, with the smell of what happened hours ago, the memories dancing in front of his eyes in groans and tongues and _close enough to feel your breath on my skin_ that Harry can nearly feel on his throat. Harry wants to feel sorry for himself, so he takes a second to let himself, wills time to stop down to a trickle so no one will know. When his eyes stop burning and his throat doesn't ache as badly, he breathes out and turns off the light. Another agonizing second and Harry wills himself to fall asleep.

* * *

It only takes twenty minutes after his phone rang with a text for his door to go off as well. Harry clicks on the buzzer downstairs and unlocks his door and decidedly tries not to panic while pushing his hair away from his eyes and into a bun, just because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

He’s spent yesterday in bed and on the couch, watching another episode of Arrow, though he’s gotten so behind, he couldn’t really follow, with his own bowl of chocolate ice cream in his lap, because he didn’t feel like hearing how screwed he was. He was fine doing that himself. Nym texted him though, making sure they were still going to Casey’s tonight and Harry had texted back a _YEEES!!!_ with a row of flower emojis just to prove how okay he was. _Absolutely fine_. Why wouldn’t he be?

He tried writing his thoughts out on the page and kept doodling nonsensical squibbles all over the paper instead and then picked up the guitar and kept strumming three chords over and over again, because the silence was growing overbearing and even if his fingers were stiff, it was better than the alternative. Not even Patsy Cline settled him, but it worked well enough. Harry didn’t spend more than ten minutes thinking about Zayn and how he left him with a kiss on a cheek again. He hasn’t let himself think about what happened, because he doesn't need to. Harry knows what happened and he knows what won’t, and for now, that’s enough.

Today was much worse, but he had Sammy all morning, a bit congested but still giggly as ever with her thin blonde hair swooping over her eyes now. He had lunch with Gemma, even went for a late afternoon run when it became clear that those three chords were persistently the only ones his fingers could find. But then his phone rang and it was like he was back to leaning against his door with his stomach on the floor and his heart beating out of his chest, with the simple, _are you home ?? can i come over ??_ lighting up the screen.

Harry can hear footsteps out on the hallway and makes a rash decision that he shouldn’t just be standing there waiting like someone who’s been glued to the floor for an entire day, even if that’s exactly how Harry feels, so he rushes off to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking at when the door clicks shut and he hears a breathy, “Hey.”

“Hi,” he tries to drag it out like he usually would, but even that sounds off him. All he keeps thinking about is that Zayn is here to tell him he can’t see Harry again. That what they did yesterday, right there on Harry’s couch, so now all Harry can think about every time he steps into the living room is Zayn’s teeth on his throat - like he does when he walks into his bedroom - was all a giant misunderstanding of grand proportions and Zayn takes it all back. Every single kiss.

What Zayn says thought is, “I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I _hate_ it. They don’t listen to me. No one ever reads the material. Not one of those _stupid_ kids read _anything_ I told them to yesterday.”

Harry steps back, closes the fridge and turns around to see Zayn pacing in front of him with his tie half undone and his shirt a mess over his shoulders, his hand in his hair. Harry blinks, but the image doesn’t change.

“They’re supposed to listen to me, Harry,” he tells him, imploring him to understand, but Harry doesn’t think he does. He’s never seen Zayn like this, frazzled and all over the place. He’s usually so soft spoken and calm, slow, but not in the same way as Harry – Zayn is always just a hand rubbing over his back away from falling asleep. Zayn doesn’t look at Harry like he’s ready to cry his eyes out or pull his hair off. He never looks like he’s about to fall apart at the first sign of _anything_.

Harry takes a step forward with one hand carefully raised toward Zayn, palm up, and it doesn’t quite feel like approaching a spooked animal, because he doesn’t think Zayn will actually run away from him, but it’s a near thing. Harry hopes he won’t run away. “It was just a stressful day,” he tries, but then Zayn’s  walking towards him again and talking over him with a rushed, “Fuck stress, I’m so far beyond stress at this point, I don’t even know what–”

Zayn’s eyes are wide, but it’s all wrong, all crazed and exhausted, and his bottom lip looks like it’s been chewed raw, so before Zayn can finish the sentence, Harry cuts him off with a kiss. It seems like the only thing he _can_ do, because Zayn won’t listen to a word he’ll say, Harry can tell, so maybe this will work instead, maybe he’ll listen to this. He doesn’t want Zayn to look like he’s about to run away anymore.

Zayn hums against Harry’s mouth when he realizes what’s happening, going pliant in one second and then hard in the next, pressing himself against Harry’s chest and biting his lips and pushing Harry back towards the counter. It’s as frazzled as Zayn is. And even with a hand at the hinge of his jaw, so Harry can rub his thumb over his cheek, Zayn doesn’t seem to calm down.

Pulling back, Harry says, “It’s just a stressful day,” again, because he still thinks it’ll work. And maybe it does, maybe it did, because Zayn’s nodding at him and then kissing him again, and it’s just a little less biting this time.

Harry can hum into it now too, acknowledge Zayn’s fingers hitching his t-shirt up and wrapping around his waist underneath it, fingers pressing into Harry’s skin. He can let his brain catch up with it and stutter out a breathy, “Bedroom,” that isn’t even a question, because Zayn’s pulling him back already.

There wasn’t a chance to do it yesterday, because Harry didn’t let himself, but it seems it only takes as long as it does to walk down his hallway to let himself have this, whatever it is, _not a relationship_ , with Zayn.

That’s what Zayn said yesterday, looking everywhere but at Harry’s eyes, that he didn’t _need_ a relationship, and although Harry thinks he could understand that in twenty different ways where at least half make his heart clench, he’s going to take it like this. As it is. He’s not going to go chasing after some deep solidifying intimacy that could probably make him tear up in these moments, won’t try to make it more than it is. It can be fun, _fun_ , Harry can do fun. He can topple over Zayn on the bed and laugh when his face screws up like Harry just elbowed him in the ribs. He can press his laugh against Zayn’s mouth to give him some of it as well. Harry doesn’t even have to try to have fun, it’s there all by itself.

“Do you think you could manage to take off your jeans today?” he says into Zayn’s neck before he nips at the skin there.

“I don’t seem to remember you having any complaints about my jeans yesterday.”

Harry shrugs as best as he can, already taking off his t-shirt and dropping it down to the floor. “I didn’t.”

Zayn chuckles before he tips him off of his hips and takes off his tie, then his shirt. It doesn’t take long for Harry to slip off his sweats, which means he can enjoy the view of Zayn fumbling with his belt and then the button, the zipper and getting the tight hem over his bony ankles. He’s all sharp angles and slim hips, black ink over his arms and untouched skin over his chest and ribs.

When Zayn gets back on the bed, lying next to Harry on his side and running a careful hand over his chest, like he’s asking if this is okay or if he’s even allowed to just touch and not have it lead somewhere else, Harry kisses the corner of his mouth and says, “They won’t all be bad days,” softly, trailing his lips down a path he isn’t sure is taking him anywhere in particular.

“I know,” Zayn says and his hand seems to find an intention as he moves it over Harry’s hip and gives it a pinch. “They’re not. Not all of them.”

“Good.”

“How was your day?” Zayn asks too casually for lowering his eyes down Harry’s chest to where his cock is already half-hard because of the simple anticipation, and gripping Harry in his hand finally, feeling how his dick twitches at the first touch.

“Uneventful,” Harry stutters out, sinking back into the mattress to give Zayn more room if he wants it, but his hand tightens around him and then he’s letting go altogether. Harry tries to keep the whine inside his throat.

“We should get lunch on Monday, maybe I can take you to my favorite spot for a change.”

Harry shivers at that, grabbing onto Zayn’s words as greedily as ever, but he can’t focus on them, because Zayn’s slipping down on the mattress and between Harry’s legs slowly enough that it shouldn’t overwhelm Harry, but it does. He thinks his heart stops with it.

“Scoot up.” Zayn points his chin up and Harry does as he says, bending his knees and spreading them apart as he hitches higher on the bed, propped up by the pillows. He thinks he’s trembling, but he can’t be sure.

He definitely does, though, when Zayn wraps a hand around him again and sits back on his haunches and just looks down at him, like all he wants to do is look, like this is all he wants. It’s only fair though, because Harry’s taking a look too, except he doesn’t know where to settle his eyes – on Zayn's hand pulling him off tight and slow or Zayn's cock between the open space between his legs, hard and wet at the tip.

“You could–” Harry starts, but stops, because he isn’t sure what he wants.

“I could?” Zayn asks with a raised eyebrow and a twist of his wrist.

“ _Ah_ , you could _do_ something.”

“Like what?”

“Like anything,” Harry whines, not that he means to. His thigh is twitching and he doesn’t think he can look at Zayn anymore, has to settle his eyes on the ceiling. He’s just happy that Zayn doesn't mention how he is actually doing something already.

There’s a moment where nothing happens and Harry’s about to curse time to hell and back, because it would be entirely unfair if it stopped _now_ , but then he hears Zayn ask, “Like this?” quickly, before his lips are on the head of Harry’s cock and all of a sudden, Harry thoughts go all mushy.

He makes a noise that he hopes comes out as _yeah_ , but it might not. Zayn keeps a hand wrapped around the base and his mouth over the tip, curling his tongue around this way and that way, like he wants Harry to breathe with the rhythm he’s keeping. Harry wants to tell him it’s useless, because he isn’t breathing at all, but he is gasping for air when Zayn swallows him down, choking just barely, just enough for Harry to hear him.

“Do you, um,” Harry stutters out, “do you want to talk about it? Your day?” He has a vague thought that even if Zayn did want that, he couldn't exactly, not right now, and the raised eyebrow he sees when he looks down at Zayn, mouth around the tip of his dick says as much as well. “Yeah, okay, okay.”

Zayn pulls off with a slurp that Harry feels in his toes. “Would rather not think about it right now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry says again, and he thinks it is s okay if he can get his hand in Zayn's hair, that he won't say anything or grumble in an annoyed huff. He doesn't. “Take your mind off it, right?”

“Mmm,” Zayn hums in agreement, maybe, Harry doesn't really know because he does it with his mouth back on him, tongue pressing against the underside of his cock as he takes down more of him. Harry has a fleeting thought that maybe he should be the one bend over between Zayn’s legs if he wanted to take his mind off of anything, but maybe this works just as well, since Zayn keeps humming, keeps a rhythm that Harry tries to catch with his hips until he has Harry choking alongside him, breath ragged and not entirely where it’s supposed to be.

It isn’t until Harry can't keep himself still underneath him that Zayn says something again, mumbling because he can't do much more, and then grabs Harry’s hips with both of his hands, like he's going to hold Harry down and still. Harry tries to anyway, but then Zayn’s looking up at him through his long long long eyelashes and going still too, like he's waiting for something else. And it takes far too long for Harry to understand what that is, but he does, _god,_ he does. “Fuck.”

It's difficult to breathe as it is, but maybe holding the side of Zayn's face with the heel of his hand right where he can feel Zayn relaxing his throat to take more of Harry down will actually help ground him, keep his head clear enough to not go completely blank. He doesn’t want to close his eyes. Because Harry wants to watch this, he wants to remember this.

He still doesn’t know which voice to trust: the one telling him that this is it, this is all he’ll ever get so he better treasure it while he has it, or the other, quieter one, whispering something that sounds a lot like, _relax, there’s more to this, you and I and him both know it_. It’s easier to sink his nails into that one, to keep his eyes open and his hand on the side of Zayn’s face and hold on for dear life.

Harry doesn't want to push Zayn down, so he raises his hips instead and if that wasn’t good enough, Zayn hollows his cheeks and hums when Harry does it finally, like he was waiting for it, and really, it only takes Harry stuttering out, “Shit, shit,” and Zayn’s satisfied moan around him to tighten his hand around Zayn’s jaw and know nothing will ground him right now, because he’s practically _soaring_.

“God, you’re so good,” _so beautiful_ , Harry thinks, and keeps it to himself. But then his eyelids fall and he gets another glimpse of Zayn’s cock between his legs and he can’t believe Zayn hasn’t even touched himself yet. Harry actually whines at the thought. “You - Do you - You should touch yourself,” he manages to stutter out between Zayn pressing his tongue on the slit and slurping around it.

For how Harry was waiting for this, for them being more than friends having lunch together while complaining about their work but still not letting it show just how bad it got sometimes – Harry doubts that this is the first time the students didn’t listen to Zayn, because he remembers how it is, going to class hung-over and barely remembering the professor’s names – he isn’t so sure that this is what he was waiting for. Harry doesn’t know if he’s ready for this. Because Zayn does get a hand around himself and then spreads the fingers of his other hand over Harry’s stomach and that simple caress, those fingertips pressing so softly into his skin is what makes him finally close his eyes, because he _can’t_. He manages to get out, “I’m gonna come,” somehow, through the pressure that’s been building and building, and the thought that this might not be enough in the end. Harry gets his fingers in Zayn’s hair and tugs when he comes over his tongue, shivering when Zayn doesn’t pull off before he gets too sensitive. But then as soon as he raises his head to look, he sees Zayn has his eyes closed now, pinched tight together as his hand blurs over his cock, finally gasping and letting Harry breathe as he gets higher on his knees and comes over Harry’s cock, like it was all he was waiting for. Like a total bastard that he is.

“You actually just came all over me,” Harry says and leaves his mouth open, because he can see it, can feel the hot sticky mess over his skin, but he still has a hard time believing it.

“Mmm, I did,” Zayn agrees with an actual nod, and Harry would think he did it because he thought it was hot or something other than just to leave a mess, if it wasn’t for Zayn’s smirk. “Think you need a shower again.”

“So every time we do this,” Harry swallows, watches Zayn catch his breath, “I’m gonna need to shower afterwards, huh?”

Zayn raises a shoulder as he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “Probably, yeah. It’s just sanitary thought, isn’t it?”

“What if I wanted to lie here for a while? Laze around.” Harry feels himself starting to smile, and he’d stop if he could. “Maybe I don’t want a shower right now.”

Zayn shrugs with his other shoulder – Harry definitely smiles at that – and flops down next to him on the bed. “Then don’t. Keep me company instead.”

“Doing what?” He wants to turn on his front, but he’d rather keep the mess contained as much as he can, even if it’s on himself. Harry just hopes Zayn knows that he doesn’t actually mind it, wouldn’t mind if it happened again either. And then another time after that as well.

“Napping, Harry. We’re gonna nap.”

Pouting, Harry whines, “But I can’t sleep on my back,” because he can’t and Zayn knows this. He’ll just end up staring at the ceiling and telling himself that it counts as sleeping.

Zayn groans something at him that Harry can’t hear, because he’s got his front half hanging over the edge of the bed as he reaches for something on the floor. “Here. You’re welcome.”

“Really?”

“It’s not like it won’t wash out,” Zayn says around a yawn. He’s making himself comfortable while Harry flexes his fingers around his shirt, the fancy black one that’s his favorite, because it’s a little tight around Zayn’s waist. If he was given a choice, Harry would rather just give the shirt back and make Zayn wear it – maybe just the shirt and nothing else, unbuttoned too, that sounds like a great idea – but he guesses if he wants to actually sleep, and he does, it’s the option where getting up isn’t involved. So he ends up tentatively wiping himself down with it and then flopping over on his stomach once he’s done, making sure he bumps Zayn’s side in the process.

They’re not exactly curled into each other, because Zayn stays on his back and while Harry’s trying to pull the covers over them both, his leg ends up hooked over Harry’s. It’s barely anything, but Harry will take it.

“What happened today?” Harry asks once they’re settled down and there’s just silence and a little sliver of light coming through the open door from the hallway. Sometimes Harry likes it, the silence. When it’s four in the morning and he can’t keep his eyes closed, because there’s a melody hovering right over his head, he wants to take it and wrap himself around it. Wants to live in it. But as it cuddles between him and Zayn on the bed, comfortable and all stretched out, he’d rather roll over and squash it. But it’s not like he expects Zayn to answer right away, so Harry breathes it in for a moment, lets it stay where it is as he waits.

Zayn sighs. It’s a heavy sound, and Harry thinks it’s the only answer he’s going to get until Zayn turns his head and opens his eyes. “Just… One of those days.”

Harry knows what having ‘one of those days’ is like. He’s been having them for years now. Some better than others, but all of them nearly the same. And he’s sure he’s never looked like Zayn did on any one of them.

He doesn’t say that though. “They’re not all like that, right?”

“No. Not all of them.” Harry watches Zayn close his eyes and breathe in, the weight of it just as heavy again, before he murmurs out quietly, “It just got to me today, I guess.”

“Do you…” There’s really no way of going around it, no story Harry can trail around until Zayn shoves at his shoulder and tells him to just get out with it. “Do you like it? Teaching?”

This time, Harry expects an answer, something like ‘yeah, of course I do’ or at least an ascending hum. But as he looks at Zayn, his eyes still closed and his teeth sunk in his bottom lip before he turns his head away, he knows he won’t get one. It’s as good as if he did though.

It’s not what this is, Harry thinks distantly, as he scoots right next to Zayn and holds him with an arm over his chest, with fingers under his ribs and nails in his skin, but maybe it can be for right now. Zayn doesn’t need a relationship and he probably doesn’t want one either, and that’s fine, Harry’s not going to throw himself at him. But he’s going to give Zayn this, whatever this is, because Zayn rolls onto his side, so Harry can fit himself right behind him to hold him closer and that’s just as good. They’ll have this for right now. And when they wake up, they can pretend like it didn’t happen.

Which is exactly what they do. Or not even that, because when Harry wakes up, Zayn’s not there anymore. And that’s even better, because Harry can get up and finally take that shower, wash it all away with soap that doesn’t seem to be strong enough, because he swears he can still feel Zayn across his chest, but then Harry wonders if there’s even any soap that could do that. He doesn’t think there’s anything that could.

When he gets to Casey’s afterwards with his hair still damp, dressed in far too many layers for early November, like Harry’s hoping for a bit of cold to make his nose red and fingertips numb, everyone’s already there. Nym and Louis are pressed together at one side of the booth and Niall and Gemma are in the other, so Harry makes an executive decision and scoots in right next to Nymeria, smiling when she brushes their thighs together.

“You want a sip?” she asks and pushes her glass in front of him, the foam at the top spilling over the edge.

“Did you just get here?” All of their drinks are topped off except for Niall’s, whose is half empty.

“Second round,” Gemma says with a sleepy smile just as Louis says, “It’s nine thirty,” loudly, making sure to lean over Nym so Harry can see him. “We said nine, and it’s nine thirty.”

Harry huffs out, “Yeah, thanks, I can tell the time.” He doesn’t know why Louis’ being so loud. Usually, there’s at least a reason.

“Well, we got here at nine.” Harry’s still frowning when Louis touches his glass, collecting drops with his finger. He looks up at Niall, who tips his glass at him and takes a drink, and Gemma, who’s giving him a another tired smile she’s been able to muster up these past couple of days since Sammy’s started teething. But then he feels his eyes bulge out when Louis says, “How come you were late? Did anything _fun_ today?”

Harry almost gasps out a, “What?” but he manages to keep it quiet. He must’ve heard wrong. But before he can force a smile and say ‘not really, no’ just to see what Louis does, he feels a hand on his shoulder and hears a, “Hey, when did you get here?”

Louis’ still looking at him as he turns around and looks up at Zayn. “Just now.” Harry tries to smile, but he can’t quite manage it.

“Let me get you a drink then.” With a look around their table and his brows furrowed when he lands on Louis, Zayn squeezes Harry’s shoulder and walks back to the bar.

It’s a long moment, something that stretches enough for Harry to feel the awkward tension seep right onto his shoulder, before Nym bumps their knees together. “How are you?”

Harry shrugs and smiles.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Really though, it’s only been a few days. “We went shopping on Monday.” Nymeria wanted a new lamp. She bought a life-size deer statue instead.

“Yeah, but you haven’t been around. Got you ice cream and everything.”

Harry wonders if he should say anything, since Louis will definitely hear and then he’s going to say something that Harry will frown at again, because he doesn’t know if Nym tells him things, best-friend-things he doesn’t want to go to Louis with for obvious reason, only one of them being that he gives shit advice. Or if it’s something he heard while having one of those cigarettes with Zayn. Because that’s what they seem to be doing. Every time they go out together, there are five minutes here and there, where they both disappear and then come back with smoke trailing behind them and yet another inside joke Harry isn’t invited to know. Harry should ask one of them about it, if they’re just smoking buddies or actual friends. He wonders if he should’ve noticed it by now, if he would’ve had he not been concentrating on other things.

Harry does end up saying, “I think I’ll need it,” but he doesn’t say more. Nym’ll get it, and Louis might too, but he doesn’t say anything either. Good, it’s good.

“How’s the writing going?” Niall asks over the table. Gemma’s curled into his side and her eyes are barely open.

“It’s going.” Or _great_ , or _making progress_ , or anything that isn’t _I’m stuck again and I don’t know what to do_. It’s always one of those. Harry smiles too.

The tension dissipates a little when Zayn comes back with another beer and a stool he pulls up to the table. Then, Harry can lean back and listen to Niall talk about Sammy’s favorite chew toy and Nym’s new project she has to do for a client and then to Louis about how one of these days, she’s going to fall off the ladder she has to use to paint on the massive canvas. Harry thinks he hums in all the right places, so no one concentrates on him too much – he’s quiet, but not completely.

It isn’t until Nym says, “Hey, how’s school?” that he perks up, because that’s directed at Zayn and he can feel how he stiffens next to him.

Harry watches him answer with a shrug and a, “Good, good,” and all he can think about is how frazzled Zayn looked, and then how he bent himself in half between Harry’s legs. If Harry’s ever needed to compartmentalize things in his head, it’s now. Especially since Louis leans forward again and gives Harry a sort of look that makes him want to slip underneath the table. It only lasts that one second though.

“Come on, up, we’re going for a smoke.”

Harry is going to ask the next time Zayn comes over. He thinks he should know what they talk about. He hopes there’s going to be next time.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go too,” Niall says when they’re all up and out of the booth, hugging and kissing cheeks and saying, “See you.”

Gemma squeezes Harry’s hips when she leans back, says a quiet, “Come by this weekend,” and Harry promises he will. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

He slides into their place once him and Nym settle back down and instead of the beer, he takes a sip of Gemma’s cocktail instead.

“Walking around helped a bit last time,” Nym starts before Harry even swallows. He knew she wasn’t going to let it simmer anymore and he’d never admit it, but Harry’s been waiting for her to say something, poke at him, make him realize that something isn’t right anymore.

“I don’t know if the walking helped.”

“Have you written anything at all?”

It’s as difficult to say, “No,” as Harry thought it would be. It’s not that he hasn’t thought about why he suddenly can’t seem to write more than a verse before he runs out of words that mean something, but every time he gets close to the reason, he closes his eyes and thinks about something else instead. It’s been easier that way.

Kind of like he’s doing now, which is probably why Nymeria reaches over the table to touch her fingers to Harry’s.

“Babe,” she sighs, but Harry doesn’t open his eyes to check if she’s giving him one of her sad smiles or worried frowns at him. He’d rather not know.

“I don’t want to write just anything, you know?” Because that’s what it boils down to. He could write a happy melody, a G chord here, a C and then an A chord there, everything in majors that he can harmonize to, sing about being in love, about something stupid, but that’s never been what Harry wanted to do. Harry wants to be honest, he wants to say something with his songs. He wants the kind of reactions he got with Gemma. Eyes welling up or genuine grins, Harry just wants to make people feel something when they listen to him sing.

Harry wants to be honest when he sings, but he’d rather not be honest right now, would rather live in the maybe’s and hopefully one day’s, than in the ‘this is how it is’. Right now, he wants to know what Zayn and Louis are talking about and if it’s something about him. He wants to be the one Zayn talks to, and Harry doesn’t want to write about _that_.

Harry puts his hand over Nym’s and opens his eyes. He’s pretty sure he won’t have a choice soon.

“Are you two still ‘hanging out?’” She makes the air quotes with two fingers and pulls a face that Harry almost laughs at.

“We’re–” Harry wants to say they’re hanging out in his bed, be all funny about it, but he’s pretty sure it would still come out sounding pathetic. “I don’t really know what we’re doing anymore,” he ends up deciding right there. _I’m still waiting_ , _I just don’t know what for anymore._

“Are you saying you’re–”

“He said he doesn’t need a relationship,” Harry cuts her off with a shrug. And then goes on when her face changes to a grimace. “He had a rough relationship before, was engaged,” he nods at Nym’s wide eyes, “And he’s not anymore, so he doesn’t want to like, jump into anything right now. And I don’t want to jump either.” _I fell_ , Harry thinks, and that’s different.

“Well.” Nymeria takes her hand back, but she knocks their feet together underneath the table, hooking hers around Harry’s ankle. “As your best friend, I think it’s my duty to say that he’s being a bit of a dickhead.”

“Nym…”

“ _As your best friend_ ,” she says again, “I need to tell you that what he’s doing sucks. And what you’re doing sucks just as much, by the way.” Harry tucks himself into the seat, but he smiles. “You’re both incredibly stupid. You should know that.”

“Do you think Louis’ telling Zayn the same thing right now?” Harry asks, peering at her carefully.

Nym snorts a laugh. “I really fucking hope so.”

“I feel,” he starts, but has to make sense of it before he decides on this as well. “I feel okay about it. Like, actually okay, not just pretend okay.”

“I think you’d be okay with anything that boy does, though.”

“I wouldn’t,” Harry lies. But Nym knows him, so it doesn’t really matter if he does.

“Just, be careful.”

“I am.” And it’s not exactly a lie this time, at least not as big of one. Harry might not know what they’re doing or if the waiting will actually be worth anything in the end, but at least he knows what to expect right now, in this moment. And that’s not Zayn coming back from outside and sliding in next to him and holding his hand or kissing him in front of everyone. Harry knows not to expect anything right now except a nod that he gets and a bump or their shoulders when Zayn does sit down next to him. And that’s okay. For right now, that’s okay. It’s the later that has him biting his lip and smiling at Nym carefully.

It’s because of those small things in the end that Harry calls Mitch and tells him not to quit his other job just yet, like they talked about doing months ago, when they couldn’t stop writing and they had two songs recorded and produced and just the way they wanted them. It’s not that Harry doesn’t get to hold Zayn’s hand, or kiss him good morning and good night, make him a coffee to take to his morning class, because Zayn is barely able to hold his eyes open in the early hours of the day. It’s not even that Harry isn’t the first person Zayn calls when something good or bad happens, it’s that he isn’t the one he calls when nothing’s happening at all. It’s not being allowed to press his thumb underneath Zayn’s eye when he looks tired as they wait for their lunch, like he didn’t get enough sleep last night, but forgot to tell Harry about it. It’s that Harry doesn’t know how Zayn slept. Not being able to know that, to do those small inconspicuous unnoticeable things like run his fingers through his hair when it flops over his eyes as he’s reading on Harry’s couch instead of paying attention to _Bridget's Jones Diary._ Because those small things end up being not small at all, not even a little.

What Harry realized after they’re back at Casey’s two weeks later and he keeps rubbing at his collarbone, because there’s an angry red bruise there in the shape of Zayn’s bite mark, is that it’s not that he loved Ariana or Jason or Paul and they didn’t love him back. It’s that Harry _thought_ he loved them, so when they didn’t, it felt like his heart was supposed to break and he was meant to go over to Nym’s and eat all of her chocolate ice cream, because that’s what you do when that happens. You wallow and maybe you cry, swear you’ll never love again until that promise gets replaced with never drinking again after you try to drown that hollow feeling away.

But Harry realizes he’s been wrong all along that night, because as his fingers twitch against his glass and he’s trying to listen to Louis explain something superfluously important to Niall and Nymeria and Liam and the whole entire pub for how loud he’s talking, he thinks _this is what it feels like_. Louis’ waving his hands around and as he nearly topples a glass over, it hits Harry that now he actually knows.

It’s never felt like this with Ariana when he was sixteen and neither did it with Paul later, when Harry was barely eighteen and he thought he _knew_ because Paul told him he wanted to go to college together, move to a dorm and travel the world after they were done, just Harry and him, against the world and all that. It didn’t feel like this in Jason’s stuffy bedroom, or two months later when he whispered it quietly to himself in the dark, Jane sleeping curled up next to him. Harry had smiled then, small and happy and maybe a little bit in love, because Jane mumbled in her sleep and he thought that was it, the bubble in his chest when she stirred and he couldn’t help smiling. But it wasn’t this.

It isn’t kissing someone until your lips are raw for the very first time, swollen and spit slick, a little redder than they usually are. Or the heavy weight on his tongue, a hot breath right below his hip, teeth at his throat. Some sort of gasping glow while his heart is trying to catch up with his lungs has nothing to do with it. Maybe it has something to do with cold toes curled underneath his thigh as he’s practically drooling on his own shoulder when he’s trying to stay awake while Zayn keeps laughing at whatever the punchline is in the movie they’re watching. But Harry still hasn’t decided about that.

It’s watching Zayn flirt with a guy that’s the same height as Harry, a bit fuller round his chest, more compact where Harry is lanky, probably a runner or something stupid like that, something that is kind of like Harry, but not at all. It’s watching Zayn lean in a little closer to the guy, like he did a few weeks ago with Harry, as he licks over his bottom lip in what looks like anticipation, but feels like a horrible heat lighting up in Harry’s stomach and crawling up to his throat.

It’s watching him flirt while rubbing at the mark Zayn left last night and knowing without a doubt, that Harry would do anything, _anything_ to be there instead of the guy, at the bar with Zayn, hand on his shoulder and laughing at whatever he said. It’s knowing, with his whole heart, that there’s nothing he can do to have that. That there isn’t anything he can give up or bargain.

 _This is what love feels like_ , Harry thinks, pushing the sweaty glass away from himself. _Wanting more so much it hurts, but knowing it’s nothing compared to what it would feel like to lose what he has either._

It’s wanting the small things, the big things, and all the ones in between. And while Harry is okay with everything else, he thinks this is the thing he’s not going to be okay with. Waiting for something else to happen, something bigger and greater and worth time stopping for one thing, waiting for Zayn to fall in love with him might be another.

Harry looks over at Louis just in time to catch Nym smacking the back of his head and then hear him grumbling something about cigarettes before walking away from the table with a pout. Everyone around him is laughing, but Harry doesn’t get it, so he sips at his drink instead, keeps his eyes on the table instead of the bar.

He gets lost talking to Niall about Sammy, like they usually do when Niall’s drank enough and Harry wants to hear everything his niece has done in the past week from morning till bedtime. They finally get to talking about which kindergarten Niall and Gemma are thinking about – though Niall doesn’t really remember the names or locations, so it’s a weird conversation – when someone squeezes his shoulder and then Zayn’s sitting next to him, scooting into the sliver of space at the end of the bench.

“Why are you two always talking about babies when you’re drunk?” Zayn asks with a laugh that crinkles his nose. Harry feels the need to bop it.

“Not babies,” Harry points his finger, “Samantha. She isn’t just any baby.”

“That’s right.” Niall raises his pint and takes a sip. “The best baby.”

“The _best_.”

“I still don’t know how you got with Gemma. I don’t know how Harry let that happen.”

Harry scoffs and bumps his hand against Zayn’s thigh. But then on second thought, he bumps it against Niall’s as well. “Still don’t know how she let that happen.”

“Oh, please,” Niall puffs out his chest and grins, “It’s my charm.”

“What charm?”

Harry’s thigh gets smacked then. “Shut it. I’m the _most_ charming.”

“I think it was a pity first date,” Harry whispers conspiratorially to Zayn, making sure he doesn’t whisper at all. “And then, well, I guess he might’ve charmed her a little.”

Zayn winks at him and Harry’s almost confused before Zayn says, “She probably charmed him as well.”

“Oh, no, there will be no talk about my sister charming anyone. Ever.” Harry takes a drink himself, smiling and smacking his lips together with the sweet taste of pineapple. “I’m the only Styles with charm anyway.”

“Is that right?” Zayn raises an eyebrow at him and it’s awfully full of doubt, that eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” he goes on, squinting a little. “I’ve got some moves.”

Zayn snorts. Which is rude. “You don’t.”

“I do _so_ have moves.”

Zayn scoffs then and Harry’s about to say something to preserve some dignity, but his tongue’s never been fast, so Zayn beats him with a, “Let’s see it then.”

“What?” There’s heat rising up the side of his neck already as he tilts his ear towards Zayn, wondering if he heard right and hoping he didn’t, because he knows for a fact that if he was actually standing next to Zayn at the bar, he’d be too nervous to ever put an easy hand on his shoulder. He remembers quickly how he kept awkwardly bumping his hands against his thighs on that train and cringes.

“Come on, if you’re apparently the greatest charmer of this century, then charm me.” Zayn leans in and says, “ _Casanova_ ,” lowly, like he knows it’ll make Harry’s face flush.

There’s an alarm that’s blasting in Harry’s head and it sounds a lot like _don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it_. He pulls at the collar of his done-up shirt, moving it up on his shoulder and then tugging down on the hem of it to bring it back down, all the while trying not to think about how Zayn sounds like when he comes.

Harry isn’t – He doesn’t consider himself a great charmer, not when he can’t make his legs walk in a straight line, falling over every fifth step _just because_. But, his crooked smile, the curve of his hip when he stands just so and the low drawl of his voice have always had the desired effect on people, Harry knows that just as well. He’s not the best, but usually he could get what he wanted, when he still wanted more than one single thing.

He doesn’t want to do that now, though, because Zayn’s all wide eager eyes and a laugh right on the tip of his tongue, probably expecting Harry to make a fool of himself in the next five seconds. And though there’s still heat crawling up to the apples of his cheeks, Harry doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He’s never flirted with someone he was pretty sure he was in love with though, and that’s more than likely a disadvantage already. The thought makes him shiver.

“You know, I–” Harry starts, shifting in his seat, turning a little to the side so he’s facing Zayn. He thinks about how to handle this, so he wins, so that Zayn doesn’t even know it’s happening. “Certain labels,” he looks up, “Have always kind of followed me around. Harry the Charmer, Harry the Flirt, Harry the One Hit Wonder,” he can’t help but wince at that one. “Harry, the one who falls too fast.” He’s trying to play up the last one, cringing for effect. Not that he really needs to.

Zayn doesn’t say anything, but he does give him a sympathetic look, probably wanting to say something against it, counter every one of those titles, but maybe the most the last one, but he, out of everyone, knows just how true it is. Or maybe Harry just wants to think that.

“And I never really felt like I had to prove them wrong. I know who I am,” Harry shrugs when Zayn opens his mouth. “And I don’t care what other people think of me.” Biting his lip as he looks down at his lap, because he doesn’t want to grin, he sighs but keeps it light. “I’m happy with who I am.” He controls his face and gives Zayn what he thinks is his most earnest smile. “I’m happy with who I am.”

A second passes where Zayn waits if he’s going to say anything else, but when Harry doesn’t, he’s turning in his seat as well, reaching his hand out to squeeze his arm. “And you should be. You’re–” Zayn bites his lip too. “You’re a lovely person, Harry.”

Harry blinks at him, a smile crawling over his lips again, but he manages to keep it to an easy curve. He leans forward an undetectable inch to ask, “Yeah?” with a breath, probably looking a bit too hopeful, too desperate for the reaffirmation, and as much as he’s playing it all up for Zayn, just to prove his point, there’s some truth in it too.

“Yeah,” Zayn says with a determined nod, leaning forward too, but from how his eyes are skirting over Harry’s face, his lips, he must not realize it.

“That, um.” Harry’s smile does turn crooked, just a little, and then he says, “That means a lot coming from you,” like he’s telling Zayn a secret. Tentatively, with a look to go with it, Harry places his hand on the top of Zayn’s knee, a careful touch as his fingers twitch minutely, just so Zayn knows it’s there. “I mean…”

Zayn’s hand moves up his arm then, over the angle of his shoulder and almost to his neck as he leans even closer, whispers a soft, “Yeah?”

Suddenly, Harry’s aware of how close he’s getting, that it’s probably better to stop here, safer for both of them, especially for his own sanity. He nearly pushes it when he notices that Zayn keeps moving closer, like he can’t stop now that he’s started and everything around them has blurred into the background, but Harry’s quick to say, “I mean,” and really grins with it, “You can’t say I don’t know how to rope someone in.”

There’s a blink, and then another, as nothing around them moves even though it does. It’s eerily familiar, yet the complete opposite of time stopping. Everything whirling and falling and sweeping away from beneath their feet, before Zayn inhales sharply and nearly falls off the booth as he leans back away from him, Harry’s hand falling from his thigh as he does.

Harry didn’t even notice he’d moved it there.

“Shit. That’s–” Zayn scratches at the back of his neck. “You’re good,” he laughs, but there’s something missing his eyes for Harry to laugh with him.

“Mhm,” he just nods and takes a sip of his drink. And then another. “I am the greatest after all, huh?”

Zayn huffs a breath and takes a sip of his beer. He runs his hand through his hair and Harry still wishes he could do it for him. It was a little mean, maybe a bit unnecessary, but it’s good to know that if he wanted to, if there’s was any part of him that wanted to kiss Zayn in front of everyone, he could. Zayn just might have a problem with it afterwards, since he’s looking at anything that isn’t Harry right now and they didn’t even get to a kiss.

Niall comes back after two more seconds, because he must’ve left sometime between Zayn challenging Harry and quickly losing – not that Harry won anything – but Louis still hasn’t showed up from his cigarette, and Nym isn’t at their table either.

“So everyone went home,” Niall says as if he’s read Harry mind. “And I’m gonna go too.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says before he takes a last kind of sip and pats at his pockets. “Should go home.”

“Alright, well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Niall points at Harry and then at Zayn. “And I’ll see you later. Maybe this week. Maybe here on Friday?”

“Probably, yeah,” Zayn chuckles, and then they both watch Niall stand up and walk in a not completely straight line away from the table and to the door.

Before either of them have the chance to move their eyes away from watching it close after him, Harry asks a sudden, “Do you want to come back to my place?” because he’s never done that before, and tonight seems like it’s been unusual enough for it to be the first time. It’s always Zayn that texts if Harry’s home, or staying after the movie, or pulling Harry into his lap after they eat the takeaway Harry brings him for dinner, because he thinks Zayn forgets he has to eat sometimes.

Harry’s never thought about it, and he doesn’t want to think about it now, but he always wondered if him asking and initiating would look like he’s asking for too much. Tonight, for some reason, he doesn’t care what it looks like.

Zayn doesn’t turn his head right away, but when he does, he gives Harry a small smile and a single nod of his head. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

They’re nearly at Harry’s building, probably three and a half minutes away, which seems to be just enough time to ask and maybe get a quick half-answer if Zayn doesn’t want to talk about it, so before he can swallow the words down and think if tonight has already tipped the balance between what they do and what they really don’t, Harry says, “Can I ask you a question?” because he knows what that sounds like, and it sounds right.

“Um,” Zayn looks at him quickly and then stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, probably gearing himself up for it. “Sure. Of course.”

“Your, um, ex-fiancé,” Harry starts, decidedly not checking the face Zayn makes at it, because he’s wanted to ask this for a while. “When did- When did you break up?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Zayn breathes out, like it wasn’t what he expected Harry to ask, which only makes Harry want to ask everything he can think of to get to that _oh_. “Um, I guess it was about two years? More probably.”

“Probably?”

“We weren’t in a good place in the end,” Zayn answers easily, shrugging. “More off than on, that kind of thing.”

“And you haven’t- since then, you haven’t-” Harry doesn’t know what exactly he wants to know. If Zayn hasn’t been in another relationship, if he hasn’t been with anyone else, anyone besides Harry. If he hadn’t been in love before or after, just the once.

Zayn still says, “No.” Maybe it’s too all of the questions, maybe it’s to none. “Not since then, no.”

Harry hums, as if he’s satisfied to get the answer he doesn’t know the question to. It’s fine, he can think about it later, wonder which one Zayn thought he was asking.

“Did _you_ propose?” It actually makes Harry smile a little, and he didn’t think it would, the thought of Zayn getting down on one knee with a velvet box in his hands and those words on the tip of his tongue.

Zayn chuckles when he looks over at Harry, his eyebrows raised, since they’re on Harry’s block now and they both know why, and still Harry’s asking about this, like it’s completely normal. It should be, maybe it should be completely normal.

“Yeah, I did.” If his hands weren’t in his pockets, Harry thinks he’d be scratching at the back of his neck. “It wasn’t, you know, really that romantic or anything.”

Harry gasps loudly. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Zayn frowns at the pavement as they stop at the bottom of the stairs to Harry’s building. “I think, a little bit, because I knew she wanted this grand thing, right? And I knew she would hate it if I did it small. So I did.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that, so he watches Zayn shrug instead.

“Not my proudest moment.”

“Did you get on one knee though?”

Zayn smiles softly at him. “I did, yeah.”

And somehow, that fixes it.

“Come on,” Harry points with his chin and starts pulling his keys off his belt loop.

That night, when Zayn’s saying something about _more_ and _fuck, just like that_ – as if Harry doesn’t know by now – or maybe he’s saying something else completely, not that Harry’s paying much attention to anything except the weight and the taste on his tongue, he knows they really are both stupid and one is a bigger asshole than the other and what they’re doing is just about the worst thing they could do together and to each other. But there’s a bead of saliva at the corner of his mouth and when he slurps so it doesn’t spill down his chin, Zayn’s leg twitches and he moans, so Harry concentrates on that instead.

This is how he can take Zayn apart, these are the moments Harry can pretend that afterwards, he’ll put him back together in a way that will finally make him stay in the morning. Harry can pretend that after, Zayn will love him back, catch him and fall for him too, all at the same time while it stays blissfully still.

Harry closes his eyes and takes Zayn deeper until he feels him at the back of his throat and he thinks it’ll work, it has to, that it doesn’t matter it didn’t work last time. He hums his agreement to himself and that makes Zayn pull at his hair a little, maybe like he’s agreeing to it too.

Even if Zayn doesn’t stay until the morning, he stays most of the night, lets Harry fall asleep first and that’s worth something too. That’s still somehow enough for now.

Because Harry’s been putting so much to the back of his head, shoveling it away like fresh snow, he piles this onto it as well. All of it, every last kiss and movie and soup Zayn orders. All of it. Harry pushed it so far away, that it stops existing and he can pretend like it’s never been there in the first place. He’d even make room, bring back some of those old problems and thoughts he didn’t want to deal with just to make room for this. So it’s what he does until he can’t anymore, because suddenly it’s big and bold and takes up so much space to be anywhere but right out in the open. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to hide away from it though.

His phone rings at eight in the morning, but Harry doesn’t hear it, because he has his headphones in already, _You Can Call Me Al_ thumping in his ears as he locks the door behind himself and starts his run at the top of his stairs. Harry doesn’t hear it when he comes back at nine either, running all the way to the bathroom and swaying his hips in messy circles as he turns on the water and waits for it to run hot, still humming _Only Girl_ under his breath. Making himself a late breakfast, Harry doesn’t run to get it when it rings again, because his milk would have just enough time to burn in the two seconds it would take, so he makes himself remember to grab it while his oats are soaking, and then right after, forgets.

Harry doesn’t check it until after noon, when he wants to call Gemma to see if he can take Sammy in the afternoon. He has a brief thought of taking her to the park so they can both mourn the half-assed display of autumn in the still-green trees when he sees the missed calls and remembers. They’re all from Jeff, and although Harry frowns down at his phone, it isn’t unusual for his producer to want to talk to him. But eleven missed calls and not one text makes him almost shiver.

Harry is sure that by now, he should be able to feel things coming. Maybe because it has something to do with time, the pauses before each new chapter begins, that should’ve made him used to it, but dread still crawls over his back as he stares at the phone laying screen down on the bed next to him. Harry wonders if time will ever give him a break.

Just as he thinks he’s bitten all the way through his bottom lip, the buzzer goes and like always, it’s one thing after the other. A knock, a ‘hey’ when Zayn smiles, a kiss and then he’s on the floor, his shoulder blades digging into the carpet he’s going to throw out – pour gasoline on it and watch it burn – as Zayn balances over his lap, pulling Harry’s slightly damp t-shirt over his head and biting at his shoulder.

Harry wants to stop, needs to take a breath and then go on much, much slower, so he doesn’t get sidetracked again. Zayn’s always been a good distraction and now Harry’s going to need to find something new to distract him. He really, really doesn’t want to find something new.

He moans when Zayn presses a knee against his crotch and then he’s rolling them over, lying Zayn out underneath him and kissing him again, so he doesn’t do something stupid like cry. But he must do something wrong, maybe he’s too fast or not fast enough about it, because Zayn’s pushing against his chest and asking, “What is it?” He’s still unbuttoning Harry’s jeans thought, and Harry knows he needs to stop him, but there’s just as any parts of him that don’t want to do it.

But the pause gives Harry enough time to take that breath, a pathetic wheeze at best, because he has to push Zayn’s hands away and he never wants to do that. He doesn’t want to do it now, but he needs to. That’s what Harry tells himself again.

“I’m–” Harry starts, but can’t find the words, can’t make sense of anything anymore. He’s tried for the past three hours, talking to Jeff and Jeffrey, Nym and his mom, but Harry’s pretty sure there’s no sense to make anyway. “I’m– I have to go.”

“Go? Where?” Zayn asks, looking at how his fingers tangle with Harry’s, because in these moments, that’s allowed and they always let themselves do it. Always take so much. So at first, when Zayn pulls Harry up and kisses him, Harry lets him.

But he has to pull away from him again. Harry’s still trying to think of a way to not break this, but knows he’ll end up doing it whatever he does, that the cracks are there already. The light will seep out and Harry won’t be able to tuck himself against them to keep it all in.

He gets himself to his feet and pulls Zayn up as well, before he guides them to the couch, because he needs to be sitting down. He hops Zayn will appreciate it.

He just needs to say it. Get it out there. Say it to make himself believe it.

“Jeff’s wife–”

“Your manager’s?”

Harry shakes his head and closes his eyes. He wants to hold Zayn’s hand again, hold any part of him, but he keeps his hands to himself. “Producer’s. She’s pregnant.”

Zayn frowns at him and nods carefully. “I know, you told me.”

“Her due date is soon and she won’t be able to fly in a couple of weeks, so they want to go to New York now. They want to be with their families,” Harry says, just like Jeff told him three hours ago, not looking at Zayn. “Live there after.” He swallows and says, “They have tickets for Thursday,” and tries to go on, repeating everything he’s told Nym already. They talked until Harry couldn’t hear how stupid he’s been and how ‘as your best friend, I can tell you I told you so, but I’m not going to.’

“Okay?”

“Jeff said they could get me one as well, a ticket, and you know I don’t like flying, but–”

“They got you one as well?” Zayn cuts him off, no longer frowning, no longer looking like anything. His face has gone blank and Harry thinks Zayn looks like how he feels.

“Jeff asked me to go with him to New York. To work on the album. To finish it.” He almost doesn’t say it, but now that he’s here, he adds, “He said a change might be good. Might get me to write again.”

Zayn’s face shifts, confused when he asks, “But you have–”, until Harry cuts him off with a shake of his head. Because he hasn’t. Not for months. Too preoccupied with everything else, with Sammy and Nym, going home to spend a weekend with his mom, with going to lunch every day at noon, because that’s when Zayn has his break and Harry isn’t blaming him, because he’s sure he wanted to be distracted from it, and Zayn did it without Harry even having to ask. Zayn. _Zayn._

This is the moment he’s decided to say, “I don’t have to leave,” because Harry doesn’t have to. He could stay right where he is, in his little one bedroom apartment with the big windows in the living room and three flights of stairs he has to climb every time he gets his mail. Harry can stay in sunny California and keep waiting for summer to crawl closer and closer and then miss it entirely until it’s gone and it’s too late.

Gemma said they’d come to visit, if he leaves, spend the holidays in New York, ‘We can make it a vacation, right? Get mom on a plane too, finally.’ _Yeah, finally_ , Harry thought, already picturing Niall drooling all over his couch and Sammy crying through the night as she teeths, keeping him up until three in the morning, because Harry is going to be the one who’ll insist on spending the early hours with her. He’ll call it quality bonding time instead of a sleeping problem. _A vacation._

Harry has reasons to go and he has a few, less than a handful to stay. But he doesn’t really, he knows he doesn't. He would’ve said _thanks, but no thanks_ already if he did. If Harry had one single reason, it would weigh the scales over and he’d throw away his suitcase and never even think about leaving again. Just one reason to stay. Something more than a friend, because he wouldn’t stay for Nym or for Louis, wouldn’t even stay for Sammy, didn’t think about doing it for her. He would stay if someone asked him too, though, if someone who wasn’t just a friend asked, Harry would stay.

Zayn’s eyes stay blank. He blinks, Harry thinks he catches one quick one, but he can’t quite make his eyes stay in focus as he leaves it all in the air – the question and the answer that he leaves up to Zayn. He doesn’t know why he’s leaving it up to Zayn, but he is. Harry thinks he should. He’s given enough time to it, that he thinks he should.

“You should–” Zayn says on an exhale and then breathes in. And it’s almost funny, how Harry hold his own in, because he’s sure everything’s going to stop and he’s going to be left the only one breathing. But he isn’t and it doesn’t, and Zayn finishes with, “Go,” because he knows what Harry’s asking him and it all seems so stupid now. “You should go.”

 _Fireworks_ , Harry thinks he hears fireworks.

He nods, swallows as best as he can. It’s so stupid, because if it wasn’t for Zayn, Harry wouldn’t even think about staying, would go where the music takes him, but it seems that even  with Zayn that doesn’t change. “Then I guess I’m going.”

“How– Um, how long?” Zayn clears his throat, asks, “How long are you going for?” and finally looks like he’s back to the person Harry knows, his face settling like a house at night – eyes open a little wider, mouth pulled up and held there in a struggle between a grimace and a smile.

And Harry’s thought about this too. If he wanted to set a date for when he _had_ to be finished. It’s probably a good sign that at least he can admit to himself that if he gave himself a number of weeks, three months tops, like he’d tried to before, he’d just be setting himself up for failure. And Harry can’t do that to himself, at least not willingly.

So he asked Jeff, and he told his mom, and Gemma didn’t like, but she said they would visit. “Indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely,” Zayn repeats. It’s like he needs the affirmation, but instead of asking Harry for it, he does it himself. Zayn might believe himself more, might need to hear it from his own mouth. Harry hopes he does. “Indefinite.”

“Gemma said they’ll visit.” Harry can’t help himself being selfish or hopeful or helpless. It didn’t work in the long wrong, all the pebbles he tried hiding away. It’s like Zayn knew the trick behind the magic from the start and Harry was doing it for nothing at all. But, he thinks he’d like to keep them, the rounded off glass and broken seashells. Harry will keep those.

Zayn hums and nods.

“Nym will probably want to come too,” Harry says, because he feels like he needs to fills the silence again, before it sits down between them on the couch. “She’s never been to New York.”

Zayn nods again. “It’s busy. There’s a lot of people.”

“You’ve been?” Harry asks carefully, making his voice work like he wants it to. He can barely hold himself upright for how he can feel himself crumbling inside, so it’s good that he can still talk. It’s good. He doesn’t know why they’re talking about this, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Harry will leave on Thursday, so it doesn’t matter what they talk about anymore.

“Didn’t like it that much. I like it here better.”

It’s Harry’s turn to hum.

“Summers are longer,” Zayn says then, like he knows, like Harry ever told him about tangerines. “I like the weather here better.”

Harry wants to tell him now, because it’s too late and he might not be able to later. He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to tell Zayn anything else after right now, but he decides not to do it in the end. Harry can’t open his mouth when Zayn finally brings his eyes up from somewhere that isn’t Harry’s eyes.

Harry’s never lost track of it – the seconds that should be tick tick ticking but aren’t when everything stills in a breath of air. He feels their pulse in his chest, beating along with his heart as his lungs expand on an inhale that never leaves his lungs every time that second crawls up his neck and stay there, waiting to jumpstart again.

He doesn’t know why it happens now. If Harry’s honest with himself, he still doesn’t know why it happened that time on the train station. Could be a beginning and an end, a hello and a goodbye that nobody else catches, that only he sees. Maybe it’s their bookends, an A and now a Z.

Without so much as a warning, there’s a pause where Harry blinks and Zayn doesn’t, just sits there with his eyes opened and his lips barely parted, and he keeps looking at Harry without really seeing him, and everything hangs in the air, suspended in time.

It’s cruel, how he feels time drag to a stop and then stay there, in the palm of his hand, over his head, right on top of his chest with a weight Harry never offered to carry. It’s what he asked for though, a moment to catch his breath, but now that it’s here, Harry wants to run away from it, tuck his head beneath the collar of his t-shirt and pretend he isn’t there.

But Zayn keeps looking at him without really seeing and it’s good that it’s happened. At least this way, Harry can make some sense of it. _This is all it was_. Harry wrote a couple of songs, he fell in love and now he has to jump over the hurdle. Just another chapter in the book.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he whispers to him. “God, I’m gonna miss you so much.”

It’s barely a moment before Zayn blinks back at him, his eyes clearing as Harry feels a shiver run down his spine. Another blink, and time catches up with him in a rush, everything falling back into place with a loud explosion.

“So. Two days.”

Harry has to bite his lip. Two days sounds a lot like no time at all.

“I can help you pack,” Zayn offers, but Harry waves him off.

“Don’t have that many things. I’ll be okay.”

“You’ll call me when you land, right?” Zayn asks and Harry wishes he didn’t know what that meant, but he does. Harry wishes he told him afterwards, after they were done rolling around on the floor again and his back ached and he’d whisper it in the space between them while they were catching their breaths.

But at least this way, he says, “Yeah, I will,” easily, because they both know he won’t.

“Okay, I have to, um- I have to go.” Zayn stands up, runs his hands over his thighs as he does. “Call me, okay?” he says again, when Harry gets up to walk him to his front door. He doesn’t mention how Zayn’s running away, doesn’t ask him why, if it would be hard for him to stay for a while, watch another romantic comedy, smoke a cigarette with Harry for once.

“I will.”

Zayn lingers with his hand on the handle for a second before he turns around and kisses Harry again, just once. “Call me,” he says against his lips.

And as Harry watches the door close, he wonders if that’s their goodbye.

 _There it is_ , Harry thinks. _There’s the fireworks._

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not making any promises for the next chapter.  
> But, come talk to me about this one :)


	5. I won't be left dancing alone to songs from the past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The length of this chapter got away from me a bit. Two more to go!

 

Harry has always measured time in stops and starts, like beginnings and ends, all the way from the first time to the last, because it made sense that way. He didn’t know how else to keep track of it, so he did it with the image of his mom levitating between one step and the next, then a hand on his shoulder, a tiny tiny thing in his arms, before the steam of the train was curled in the air like a static cloud – all of them a collection of moments that made him up like bricks and cement.

Harry doesn’t know what melts concrete, but he is sure packing two suitcases worth of clothes and one backpack of moleskins, chargers and hardbacks came as close to disintegrating him as anything. Harry’s always measured time in stops and starts, but since he’s landed in New York and didn’t turn on his phone even when the lit up sign said he could, he starts seeing it as before and after Zayn.

For the first month, Harry stays with Jeff and Ly, circling the ads he finds in the newspaper and bookmarking the ones online, halfheartedly writing down numbers and addresses, but he doesn’t look at the photos attached with much interest. He pretends he’s thinking of whether or not he can afford looking for a place in downtown Manhattan.

He doesn’t actually call any one of those numbers until after Ly bakes him a gluten-free carrot cake and the friends that aren’t really his sing him  _ happy birthday _ off key, all of them with smaller grins than what he’s used to for the first day of February. Harry doesn’t want to call then either, because he still likes the idea of being able to write with Jeff and the people he introduces to Harry along the way, right at their apartment that’s become a temporary home, even if Harry can feel the dust in the attic filling up his lungs. He tells himself it’s so Jeff can be with Ly and the baby like he wanted to, but the writing never really happens. They try a few times, sit down with guitars and empty pages, but they either come up with nothing that sticks or Harry frowns and thinks  _ I’m still the only one that’s been in love with me _ when he sees there’s  _ Eat Pray Love _ playing on the TV and realizes what he’s done, because as soon as he sees Julia Roberts’ wide smile and auburn curls, he thinks of Zayn. He writes the words down and it’s the most he gets done during all the sessions. That’s when Harry finds an ad for a small two bedroom over the bridge, calls and moves in four days later.

The day after he does, Harry stands in front of the new mirror in his new bedroom, propped up against the new wall like it’s just waiting to fall over as soon as he gets around to opening a window, and he almost thinks its reflection is faulty. He turns his torso around, inspecting the skin of his back, even steps closer to it, but there’s nothing that he’s expecting to see. Taking another step and turning around, Harry presses a finger underneath his eye and swears he feels a bruise, the sting of one right at the tip of his finger. There should be a bruise. Harry should have marks all over his ribs, indents of touches along his stomach and forearm, right below his elbow, but there’s nothing. Nothing to make him feel like he does. Maybe the bruises are on the inside, maybe they haven’t bloomed yet, Harry thinks.  _ It is only February _ .  _ Maybe they’ll flower in spring. _

There’s a moment in March where Harry thinks he should be happy, whether to be where he is now, even if that’s going to the studio with Jeff to help with other artist’s songs, because he’s figured the only problem is when he thinks about himself and his own words and melodies. That he should think of ‘during’ instead of ‘before’ or ‘after’, and be happy that there ever was a during, a time when he and Zayn could meet halfway between friends and something more, even if it didn’t last as long as Harry wanted – but still somehow long enough for Harry to want even more. It’s that thought that settles him into a routine of going to bed right after the late-night news, so he can get up before the sun does and run towards it rising.

Harry makes a few lunch dates after that, finding new favorites with regular white plastic menus and without soups of the day, tucked into tall buildings to stave off the approaching warmth April’s sunshine will bring. Before he starts skipping songs again, too antsy to listen after the first chorus booms through the speakers he sets up in his living room, Harry wakes up one morning, humming a melody full of  _ la la la _ ’s that Jeff takes, records and messes around with until they have something he can sing over about nothing in particular. They scrap it, but keep the  _ la la la _ ’s for another time.

It’s that moment, not a pause or a suspense or a sign, but a simple moment of clarity that makes Harry think he can do this again. It lasts as long as moments tend to, but they get a song done and he rides the high long enough to book flights for Gemma, Sammy, Niall and his mom, because she still hasn’t been on a plane, and suddenly, Harry wants to change that.

All it ends up doing is making him homesick for something other than winter in spring, but as he puts on the coat Gemma brings him from his closet back in LA, Harry knows it’s not really summer he’s missing.

So it takes Harry two months: to start again without being forced to do it, to get an apartment and call it home, to write a song and feel good about it, and to write three more he isn’t going to listen to if they play on the radio, because nothing about them is his. Two months before Anne comes to see where he lives and to take them all out for lunch again, to play them a melody he’s written for someone else, because then it doesn’t matter what it’s about or what it means or if it’s about staying, about leaving or something else. It’s why Harry doesn’t play them the demo where he sings, just the piano and guitar. They don’t want to hear it and neither does Harry.

He can still hear the words though, and maybe Gemma does too, or maybe it’s all just written on his face, because sometime along the way, Harry started wearing his emotions like badges pinned to his chest. It’s good that no one knows it in New York, though he’s pretty sure Chelsea already has a few theories about why he doesn’t ever want to talk about his music, LA or changes the subject the only time she says, “I don’t know, you get this look, like you’re not all here.” She doesn’t bring it up after that and Harry likes her more for it.

When he talks to Nym, she asks again if he’s met someone, anyone new and shiny and interesting, ‘worth telling me about’, and maybe she is or she isn’t, but Harry tells her about Chelsea, or the girl he couldn’t remember the name of until she told him, ‘You know, like football?’ Harry remembered after that, because even if they were sitting in a cafe in Chelsea, she said football. Like she knew.

Niall likes the song so much it rattles something to life inside of Harry, some type of heat that’s been missing for a while now, that makes him want to do more, write more, and then make Niall listen to all of it, because he’d tell Harry if it’s good or not. Or Harry trusts him to anyway.

“How is everyone?” Harry asks with Sammy jumping in his lap, so he can look at her instead of Gemma as he does. She knows what he’s asking either way, but it saves Harry the blush and his throat doesn’t go as dry as it would otherwise.

“You talk to Nym every day,” Niall scoffs and slinks his arms around Gemma and Anne both, snuggled in between them on the couch. It doesn’t feel like Harry’s been replaced, even if it looks like it. “And don’t think Louis doesn’t complain about not talking to him as much as you do her.”

Harry does give Niall an exasperated look then, because really. He talks to Nym every day, so he knows Louis suddenly isn’t eating lunch at her studio anymore like he did for months, years, before Harry left. And Harry knows that when he calls on Friday nights, sometimes there are voices that he hears in the background when Nym picks up and then can’t after three seconds, because Nym leaves the room when she’s talking to Harry now, since there are people around who Harry promised to call and still hasn’t. Though he’s still trying to figure out if he hasn’t yet as a self-preservation tactic or if he’s trying to pretend his phone doesn’t work anymore and Nym is just playing along. Not that Harry particularly wants to find out which. And from the times Louis has talked to him, all the while obviously  _ not talking _ about certain things and certain someones, it felt like they weren’t left to say much else in the end.

“Still,” Harry shrugs as nonchalantly as he can, because he does want to hear from them as well, hear it twice, hear the things Nym doesn’t tell him and Louis doesn’t talk about.

“Okay, well,” Niall beats Gemma, leaves her looking at Harry with her mouth open until she blinks slowly and sighs. “You know Nym’s been working on this project for something or other.” Niall says it like he’s going to go over their friends one by one, like they make up a list.

“The charity, yeah,” Harry agrees, bopping Sammy on the nose because he’s heard all about it and he wants to pretend like he isn’t waiting to hear about the things he knows nothing about.

“Right, the charity thing, which has been going great,” Niall looks at Gemma who nods, “And Louis’ going for vice principal next year, so he’s campaigning and making her paint him signs for that as well.” Harry’s seen photos of them, all painted with yellow, red and green, because the students get to vote too and they all know what Louis’ trying to say with those colors. The parents, thankfully, haven’t figured it out yet. Everyone’s just happy the principle slot isn’t open as of yet. “Oh, Liam’s been hanging around, did Nym tell you?”

Harry nods his head and decidedly does not look up at him. Or Gemma.

“Yeah, he’s an okay guy. Firefighter. Always buys a round at Casey’s so we’re keeping him around.” Which is what matters, Harry thinks. That Liam, all six foot four of him - it doesn’t matter than Harry knows he’s shorter than that now - buys them all rounds at Casey’s, where Harry had his own spot on the bench until he packed up and left, because he wanted to follow his dream or prove himself or run before anyone could run away from him. One of those, all of them, it doesn’t matter, because Harry is sure Liam is sitting where he used to either way.

“You know I’ve been given a regular slot to jam a bit on stage every week,” Niall says more quietly, so Harry brings his eyes up to smile at him at that, right as Gemma leans her head against his shoulder and Anne looks just as proud as when Harry talks about jamming himself. Or at least when he used to. “And Zayn’s thinking about quitting, so we’re talking about that, like, every night we go out, right?”

The chuckle Niall trails off with sends a hot shiver down Harry’s spine. He thinks he sees Gemma flinch, but he makes a funny face at Sammy instead, sticking out his tongue at her until she giggles rather than checks to see if he’s right.

“Almost every night, yeah,” Gemma agrees and Anne asks, “Why? Isn’t he a professor?” which is one of the million questions that are going through Harry’s head. One of them is ‘I should call and ask myself,’ but Harry guesses since that isn’t a question, he shouldn’t be thinking it.

“A TA,” Harry says before anyone else can, because he knows better than they all do. “He, um,” clearing his throat, he makes himself ask, “He’s thinking of quitting?”

“Yeah,” Niall sighs and Harry can feel it in his own lungs. “I don’t know, he hasn’t really said why…”

Gemma straightens up at her queue, continuing with a simple shrug and a, “Louis’ been encouraging him. So.”

“Encouraging him how?” He asks as he has to twist Sammy around in his lap, because he isn’t giving her all of his attention anymore and she decidedly doesn’t like that. It takes Gemma enough time to answer for Anne to stand up and take her with a soft, “Let’s look outside for a bit, huh? Maybe find a bird or two,” which makes Sammy squeal happily, sounding out something like a, “Bee,” that probably means more bird than anything else. It doesn’t make Harry move or stop him from looking at Gemma expectantly though, waiting for her to explain the Louis and the encouraging.

“Just that, you know, if Zayn’s unhappy, then he should do something about it.”

_ That’s my line though _ . Harry should be the one talking to him, sifting through what Zayn says for what he means and trying to see what he wants underneath all of that. That’s what Harry was good at, talking to Zayn about something he didn’t want to talk about, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or all of the above. Harry knows he moved and left and probably lost the right to sift through anything of Zayn’s ever again, but the thought of Zayn going to Louis to talk, makes him wonder how many cigarettes they smoke when he does. And if they’ve invited someone outside with them yet. Maybe Liam. Maybe Liam gets to do the things Harry never could.

“And what is he doing about it?”

“Quitting?”

Harry shoots Niall a look. “I  _ know _ . You said that. But what would he do instead?” Because Zayn said it himself - he’d have to think about it all over again, his whole life, everything he’s worked so hard for. If he doesn’t want to teach, he’d have to do everything all over again. And Zayn wouldn’t ever quit without having somewhere to land right afterwards.

“He’s been volunteering at Lou’s school.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Niall laughs easily, like it’s funny, as if Harry feels like laughing. But then he says, “No one knew he could draw,” and Harry almost does.

“Draw?”

“He’s been teaching art as an after class thing,” Gemma supplies softly, and, sitting on his living room floor that definitely  _ does not _ have a carpet, Harry realizes that he’s going to have to survive on nothing but little scraps of Zayn from now on. The pebbles he’s collected are going to start to grow moss and Harry will have to flick them back into the ocean without getting new ones in return.

Harry wishes there’ll be an end to it soon, the realizing of all the things he’s going to miss and the ones he left behind indefinitely, but especially the things he wasn’t asked to stay for. Every day it feels like there’s another thing Harry should regret, each day a new item on the list of ‘you’re so  _ so _ stupid and here’s why’, and he really can’t wait for the day when there is none, when he has all of them written down and he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.

He doesn’t want to act like he blames Zayn for it, because he doesn’t, but Harry doesn’t know if he can blame himself either, except that leaves no one to point his finger at and it’s disorienting at best and the reason why he still isn’t writing at worst. Maybe there just hasn’t been enough time between before, during and after. Maybe Harry just needs to wait again.

“Art,” Harry says, throwing a pebble back.

“Maybe he should work at Nym’s place,” Niall says it like the idea just occurred to him, but it’s probably something Louis must’ve suggested as soon as Zayn mentioned art. Maybe Zayn doesn’t want to teach poetry of the sixteenth century for the rest of his life, but still wants to teach. Harry wishes he could ask him if he’s right. If he knows Zayn as well as he thinks he does.

“He wants to teach,” Harry says offhandedly, thinking of Zayn in front of fifteen little kids instead of young twenty-something year olds and the image fits better somehow, less sharp around the edges, more simple t-shirt and no slim ties Zayn would have to hold back during lunch. Maybe he could want to want to do that. His parents would still be so proud of him.

“Mhm,” Gemma hums. “I think he’s really going to quit.”

“He should,” Harry decides then and there. “He should.”

“We’ll tell him you said so.”

And it’s not like he hasn’t since he’s been in New York, but the smile he gives Gemma feels different than the rest have been.

“You can tell him your-” Niall starts to say, but is thankfully interrupted by Gemma standing up and saying, “Lunch?” much too loudly to be anything than what it is. Harry’s thankful for it then, and all the way through lunch and then at three in the morning, when he does end up being the one who wakes up first as Sammy starts crying.

Harry paces up and down the living room for half an hour before she settles down, face tucked into the crook of his neck as he keeps walking from the windows to the front door, looking down at the couch he’s made into a bed for himself. It doesn’t remind him of anything, the dark gray cushions or the black throwback bundled up at the end of it. There’s still unfamiliarity when he looks at his kitchen, not so much stainless-steal as comfortably homely and mostly light colored wood except for the dark circle stains of too-hot pots and pans the previous tenants left on the counter. The space doesn’t remind Harry of anything, but what’s even better is that it doesn’t remind him of anyone either.

“Are you gonna come for a visit too?” Gemma asks as they’re shuffling bags over their shoulders and Niall’s trying to close up the stroller but the cursing suggests he isn’t having much luck.

“Next month, maybe?” Anne suggests with a smile. Harry returns it with a kiss to her cheek and a, “Maybe, we’ll see.” He’s careful to not make any promises.

“When’s Nym coming up?”

“Soon. Probably.”

“She misses you, you know.”

Harry’s sure he does, but he says, “Nah, she’s enjoying being away from me. Needed a break and all that,” instead, because somehow that’s easier and it might not make him call her as soon as they leave. She does deserve a break.

Gemma shakes her head and gives him a hug with Sammy in her arms. Harry coos at them both before Gemma says, “They all miss you,” and it suddenly doesn’t matter anymore, any of it.

“Yeah, well,” Harry shrugs as a lump crawls up his throat. “I miss them too. We all miss each other. Now go before you miss your flight.”

“We really should.”

“I’m gonna tell everyone you miss them,” Gemma insists over her shoulder as Niall ushers her out the door. “All of them. Individually. I’m gonna tell them.”

“You do that!” Harry says with a wave when they’re already out the door. He catches Anne’s kiss with his hand right before she closes the door behind them and they’re gone.

In the end, all their visit does is make him miss home even more, except Harry doesn’t know if that’s a where or a who anymore. Maybe both, maybe it’s neither.

He manages to float through the next few days, which turn into a few weeks and then spring is nearly over and he only forgets Chelsea’s name twice during that time. They keep having casual lunches and dinners over at friend’s places, though Harry wouldn’t really call them his friends, but he guesses he doesn’t have much of a choice. And since he’s let his shoulders fall down a little and laughs a bit more, those friends multiply and it suddenly isn’t so bad, the whole New York thing he almost entirely regretted. When Chelsea kisses him in the back of a cab one night and makes Harry forget about everything for a little while, Harry thinks it really isn’t all that bad. It’s not like Harry feels fireworks -  _ anything but fireworks _ \- and he can’t really feel a spark either, but he feels warm again, as if she’s a blanket and lets Harry wrap himself around her. When she says, “You’re a good friend Harry,” he doesn’t even feel guilty when he does end up tucked into her side. And it’s good too, the way she says it right before she kisses him again. Chelsea is easy to have around, she never asks too many questions, and she always texts back within three minutes. Sometimes, she’s tucked into Harry’s side when they go out, and sometimes she isn’t, laughing with her head thrown back on the other side of the table. Sometimes she only gives Harry’s shoulder a squeeze before she leaves without him, and that really only makes it easier. It makes Harry want to have her around.

It’s at one of those dinners that he meets Adam, her cousin and also hobby bass player, who invites himself to the studio with Harry the next day, and though they manage to play around a little, Adam mostly showing what he knows and how he can’t takes cues to save his life, he invites himself over the next day too, and before Harry knows it, he starts hanging out with Jeff as much as Harry does.

Harry doesn’t know when it happens, because time keeps leisurely to its pace, but he’s pretty sure it’s the night Jeff brings a bottle of tequila to the studio, and though Harry swears up and down he’s not going near it, he does, of course he does, because he hates himself too much not to.

It’s when the bottle’s half empty that Jeff suddenly asks, “What happened with you?”

Harry pretends he doesn’t know what Jeff’s talking about, so he says, “What do you mean?” and then regrets it immediately, because now he’s going to have to hear in which ways exactly he’s changed from before to after. He drains another inch of tequila and barely even wheezes afterwards.

“You’ve just been, I don’t know. Quiet? Or like, less like yourself.”

It takes everything he has, but Harry resolutely doesn’t say that’s because a part of him is missing. There isn’t, is the thing. He’s still his whole self. Instead, he says, “I’m okay. I’m fine,” because that sounds so much better. “Really, I’m,” he shakes out his head, “I’ve been getting used to the new place and everything. New environment. Less sunshine.”

“We have just as much sunshine as the sunshine state,” Adam half slurs. “It’s just not as warm.”

Harry scoffs. “Yeah.” It’s less warm, less bright, less of the sun he’s grown up with, less of the sun Harry can’t help but miss.

“I thought this would cheer you up,” Jeff tips the bottle towards him, “but I guess not, huh?”

Harry doesn’t know why, but he laughs at that. He hasn’t talked about it, not with Nym or with Gemma, not really. It’s like they both know he’d rather stay quiet and pretend like nothing ever happened. But maybe he should. It’s a barely formed thought before Harry’s saying, “You know Zayn? I think I mentioned him a few times, before....” Harry did, every day that they went to lunch, he said his name. Now, after months, it’s almost strange saying it again. When Jeff hums and Adam nods, even if he’s definitely never heard of him before, Harry chuckles a broken sound. “I’m pretty sure I was in love with him.”

Harry didn’t know how it would feel to say it out loud. He always thought he’d tell Nym first and then watch her shake her head and say ‘ _ Oh, Harry _ ’ all slow and a little sad for him, because she’d know he wasn’t going tell Zayn and she’d have to keep his secret. She would’ve too, she would’ve kept it all to herself.

Before either of them can say anything, Harry adds, “Or, I know I was and now I’m here and he’s there and I shouldn’t love him anymore.”

Adam pats his back and Jeff  _ tsks _ sympathetically.

“We weren’t,” Harry starts, because he feels like he has to say, “We weren’t dating, you know, like together together. Just…” but he doesn’t know how to explain it. “We were something and I don’t know.” He sits back on the couch and looks down at his lap. It’s easier to admit, “I miss him,” than he thought it would be.

A slow second passes before he’s handed the bottle and wiping his mouth after taking a burning sip, and then Harry actually smiles when Jeff says, “Want to write about it?”

The song starts with  _ We don’t talk about it, it’s something we don’t do _ , because besides that one time, when Zayn climbed into his lap and Harry let him, held him right there, they never said anything about it. It was such an easy change, to go from saying goodbye at the door with a kiss on the cheek, to murmuring it into the top of Zayn’s head after Harry got dressed and Zayn was already dozing off. They went from texting about lunch in the morning, to late-night  _ what are you doing??  _ They went from knocking tentatively on their front doors, because it was still new and they didn’t know how to be comfortable around each other yet, to Harry opening his door naked except for a pair of slippers, because he couldn’t wait any longer, and he spent the ten minutes Zayn was running late getting started without him. Now, Harry thinks, he knocked so hard sometimes, he bruised his knuckles.

Without ever second-guessing it or doubting it or doing anything other than wanting it again and wanting it more, Harry doesn’t even know what he’d say to Zayn if he saw him walking down the street now.  _ Do you miss me? Do you think about me? Do you regret it? _ Because Harry does sometimes, when he lets himself believe that it wouldn’t turn out like this if they stayed friends, just friends.

In the middle of it, while Harry’s still singing quietly under his breath, feeling like he’s being torn open with the words, Jeff asks, “Do you still love him?” just as quietly, frowning down at Harry’s vocal tracks.

Surprising himself, Harry manages to sigh out a, “Yeah,” and then, “I do,” when he realizes it’s not actually that difficult to say.

Jeff hums deeply, smiling before he seems to change his mind and frowns instead. “Did he love you?”

“I don’t, I don’t know.” Zayn never said anything, neither of them did. It was never implied. “We never talked about it.”

“Do you think he did?” Jeff pushes and it’s almost like Harry’s talking to Nym back in her kitchen, except Jeff’s face stays soft and careful, where she would be sharp and demanding, always fierce.

“More like I hope he did,” Harry confesses. He hasn’t even let himself think that, doesn’t know the last time he was honest with himself. It’s brutal for his heart, terrific in a completely terrible way, how it clenches and sobs in his chest. He needs to get over this, needs to stop feeling sorry for himself already. Harry needs to move on.

“It gets better, you know?” Adam pipes up from the corner, cradling his bass in his lap. Harry doesn’t even know Adam, knows Jeff to a certain extent, even if they did live together for that month, so maybe that’s why it’s easier, to talk about it now in this soundproof room, where he knows no one else will hear him. But he doesn’t even know Adam and yet Adam seems to know everything about Harry now.

“ _ I  _ need to get better,” Harry mumbles down at the page. He scribbles  _ get better _ in the top right corner and circles it twice.

“Probably can’t get any worse, right?” Adam chuckles at him softly, like he’s trying to make Harry smile or just change his face from the frown that’s been curling up his forehead for the last twenty minutes. Harry manages it in the end, relaxing his face and giving some sort of a twisted grin to him.

“You’ll work it out,” Jeff offers patiently again.

“Yeah, like, what if he suddenly realized what he’s lost and comes to find you?” Adam jumps in his seat, bottle of tequila suddenly back in his hand. It’s surprising they’re even able to hold a straight conversation, little less actually record anything as they do. “That would be crazy romantic.”

“That would be crazy, period,” Harry deadpans, bursting the hope before it starts to expand. He knows Zayn lost something when Harry left, just like he did, but he doesn’t know if he lost as much. What Harry does know is that Zayn isn’t one to go looking for the things he loses.

“You never know,” Adam sing-songs back at him, wiggling his eyebrows as he does. He’s ridiculous and Harry’s a little happy to have met him. “Maybe he’ll come around and see the wrong of his ways.”

“Or,” Harry starts, tapping the pen against his leg as he lets himself dream a little, “He can be happy where he is and I can be happy right here with you two, and that’ll be that.”

“ _ Or,  _ you could meet him halfway across the country in like, Kansas or something, and live happily ever after on a nice little farm.”

“Or, you could put that bottle down and start actually playing some guitar.”

Adam scoffs and Harry manages a genuine laugh in the middle of it, because maybe he’ll just end up being fine in the end.

He says, “What if we put the beginning at the end,” before they call it a day, because for some reason, that ends up sounding perfect.

Harry doesn’t know how it happened or when, maybe in early spring, when the sun did get warmer and he stopped hiding from it, but along the way, Chelsea’s friends somehow become Harry’s friends too. He goes running with Cliff in the mornings, still calls Nym every day, but texts with Adam the most, because he’s simple and funny and doesn’t tell Harry off for his puns.

They’re good people, a bit different than Niall or Louis, no one’s as straight with him as Nym’s always been, and Harry’s never not had friends of his own, has only ever had people who were his first and foremost, but he doesn’t even notice it now – Harry doesn’t even think how all of them could disappear along with Chelsea, if she does. When she does.

They eat lunch together, always more than a handful of them. Some days, someone new will pop up, another person whose hand Harry will shake and whose name Harry will try to remember. He floats around them, with them, but he doesn’t even notice it.

With his hand on Chelsea’s knee, he sticks a tomato on his fork and laughs when everyone else does.

She always orders the same thing, no matter where they eat: a cheese toastie she only ever eats half of. To Harry, who makes sure to try the entire menu each side dish at a time, it didn’t make sense, the toastie, but after a while of just sitting there watching her eat it with a hand over her lips so she can talk at the same time, he finds himself smiling at it. The thought she probably finds comfort in it makes Harry feel warm.

“Dinner?” Chelsea asks over her shoulder, already walking back to her job with Tiffany and Andreas. Her hair is a mess over the back of her jacket, all tangled and frizzled, her lipstick less vibrant than it was an hour ago, her nail polish chipped.

“Yeah, I’ll call you,” Harry says with a smile and a wave.

It’s good, this thing he has with her. They’re friends, they hang out. She laughs with a snort and has freckles over her nose.  Sometimes they kiss while they eat dinner at her place, their lips greasy with roasted noodles, and sometimes, she comes over to Harry’s and they have sex when they manage to drag their feet from the couch to the bed, all half-asleep and slow and lazy, and it’s good, the sort of easy falling into each other that Harry wants right now. In the morning, they wake up together and she runs to her place to change before work. Harry’s never had something like this before. He doesn’t love Chelsea and he doesn’t think he will, and she doesn’t love him either, not in that kind of a way. Still it’s easy, uncomplicated. They eat lunch together every day. Even without the love, they’re good together.

It’s just the beginning of August, the pavement melting ten steps ahead as Harry walks down the street. He lets himself enjoy the heat, welcomes it even, and doesn’t frown once as he goes to get his suit fitted.

He can’t wrap his head around it – his first single in years playing on the radio, a rock-ballad he’s going to have to perform live soon, too soon. Harry’s always had his reservations about it, but now he has to get ready to stand on a stage, maybe with a guitar over his shoulder, maybe sitting on a stool again, so he can be calm and catch his breath. Thinking about it makes him nervous, jittery, excited for it, but he’s calm now. It’s just an award show he’s making an appearance at, so people know he’s back, that next year he’ll be the one nominated and giving out a ‘thank you’ speech on the stage, though Harry doesn’t really want to think about that. He pushes the door open and smiles at Sarah.

“Hey.”

“Hey babe, how are you?”

“Hot,” Harry says and smirks, making Sarah blush like she always does. “Sick of summer, you know.”

“Sure, sure.” She’s nodding and smiling, and Harry can’t help but think she’s pretty every time he comes around for a suit. She’s as tall as he is, brunette, always smiling when he sees her. He likes that in a person. This is his fourth time here, and he probably likes her more than he did the last time, because with a smirk of her own, she pulls out a black bag tucked over a hanger and says, “You’re gonna  _ love _ this one.”

Harry still doesn’t know how Jeffery pulled it off, this deal with Gucci, or a sponsorship, maybe just a favor of some kind that has something to do with Harry wearing their new line for his first photo-shoot where the words  _ Back and better than new _ were written right on top of his wet face on the cover of the magazine. Anne said she framed it and Harry believes her.

“Let’s see it then.” He claps his hands, enjoying the AC blowing down the back of his neck until Sarah is pulling him to the back where the dressing rooms are and Harry hears the sound of the zipper. “Shit.”

“Right?”

“It’s…”

“You’ll look  _ so _ good in this.” Sarah says, giving the suit over to him and pushing him past the curtain. “Call me if you need anything!”

Harry yells back an, “Okay,” but he’s not really paying attention, because the suit is pretty. It’s actually  _ pretty _ , black flowers on white, flared pants, and someone has tucked a black shirt onto the hanger as well. Harry whistles, actually whistles to himself, because really.  _ Shit _ .

It doesn’t take any time for him to strip out of his jeans and put it on, careful to not tug too hard or bend his knees too much. It fits. Well, it fits him perfectly.

He’s stepping out of the dressing room in just his socks when he sees Sarah first thing and then they’re both grinning at each other, a little bit giddy.

“It’s amazing.”

“God, you look gorgeous.”

Harry has the decency to blush, but he knows, is the thing. The jacket isn’t pulling over his shoulders and as he steps in front of the mirror, he sees the pants are just long enough, even with his lanky legs. “Did they make this just for me?”

“I found your size,” Sarah says with her chin raised up a little, as she pulls his shoulders back, swipes her hands over his arms as if there’s any dust to wipe away.

“I think I might love you, Sarah,” Harry jokes, but he isn’t. He does, he really really loves her.

“Let me take a photo of you and we’ll be even.” She winks at him and goes back to the front to get her phone.

Harry nods and without an inch of shame, he’ll ask her to take one with his phone as well. He wants to send it to Nym and Gemma, show them how  _ pretty _ the flowers are.

He’s humming under his breath as he waits. It takes him nearly five seconds before he realizes that it’s his own intro that’s playing over the speakers on the ceiling, the piano riff that he came up with by himself after a too loud lunch with Chelsea and everyone else. Harry wanted something slow, calm, paced down and easy. He chuckles at his reflection and without even thinking too much about it, starts singing along with himself, because it’s still a rush, hearing his own song on the radio again.

They have a few done now, three from back in LA, and more than ten in New York, probably closer to twenty if he counts them all. Some of them aren’t good, Harry can admit that to himself and to Jeff and Jeffrey and anyone else who asks. Some of the songs aren’t going to be put on the album, but they’re there, Harry wrote them and he’s counting them in, because slowly but surely, him, Jeff and Adam, with some of the people that come and go, they’ve managed to put them all together after that one unfortunate time where Harry opened up and Adam threw up all over Jeff’s studio. When Harry remembers this whole process later on in two or three decades, he wants to remember that.

Harry can see Sarah talking on the phone to someone as she walks by the line of the mirrors and holds up one finger at him, but he waves her off. He’s standing in a Gucci suit and singing along to his own song. Harry can wait.

He’s just about to turn around to look at how it sits over his back when there’s a rush of noise and a gush of hot air from outside at the front of the store. It’s a second before it’s all gone, and then another before Harry hears, “Well, if it isn’t the famous Harry Styles.”

Nothing really stops this time, but Harry’s breath catches in a gasp that is entirely too loud, and even his own voice over the radio doesn’t cover it. There’s a moment where he almost whirls around with a hand over his mouth in a theatrical sort of shock, like a gasp and fall to the ground, a faint that wouldn’t be a complete over-exaggeration of what’s going through his head, but Harry manages to stay collected enough to stand where he is, looking at the reflection in the mirror capturing both him and Zayn.  _ Now _ , Harry thinks,  _ the bruises are going to show finally. _

The first thing Harry says is, “What?” because  _ what?  _ and then, “Hey,” quickly afterwards.  _ Your hair’s longer _ flitters through Harry’s head, even if it isn’t. Zayn’s cheeks are covered with a thick beard and his hair is short, curling on the top of his head – it’s that sort of disheveled artfulness he’s always carried around with him.

He stays perfectly still for a moment, thinking  _ it’s going to stop again, god, it’s going to happen _ , but it doesn’t, so he doesn’t have any time to get himself together before Zayn’s asking, “What’re you doing here?” as he’s walking towards Harry, like this is such a coincidence, that he’s here, in midtown, in the Gucci store that’s tucked into the corner of the shadows and 5th avenue, at the same time Harry is, when Zayn is supposed to be in LA, smoking a cigarette with Louis on their break. Harry should be the one who’s shocked.

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” Harry asks the reflection that’s come to a stand right behind him. He appreciates Zayn’s smile, but it does nothing to slow Harry’s heartbeat. He can feel it pounding in his legs.

“I’m–” Zayn’s smile stutters then, slips a little and sits crooked on his face. “Didn’t–?” Zayn starts, his smile shifting into a grimace, “I thought someone would–” He shakes his head and says, “I live here,” and  _ then _ it stops. Without the world and the suspense and feeling like he’s the only one left breathing, time stops. Just for Harry. It’s just his world that screeches to an abrupt halt that nearly topples him over.

_How long? When? And_ why _didn’t_ _anyone tell me?_ replace Harry’s every other thought as he watches Zayn’s face do something completely unfamiliar, a twist of features he doesn’t know where to begin to recognize.

“Um,” Zayn clears his throat. “I thought someone would tell you, since… you know.”

_ Since you and I don’t talk anymore. _

“They didn’t.” Harry doesn’t know why they didn’t. It’s not like he would’ve gone out and went looking for Zayn around town. New York’s too big for that. Harry wouldn’t even know where to start looking. Manhattan maybe, though Brooklyn’s more likely, because it would only make sense that they’d end up being practically neighbors without knowing it. What would Harry even do if he found him? Try to say hi? Lurk? Follow him around until he found out what Zayn was doing in New York to begin with? There’s a reason Harry thinks of as he cocks his head to the side and looks at Zayn. It’s that more than anything that sends a shiver down his spine.

“So, how long have you been here?” Harry asks and goes to fix the lapels. They’re not as even as they could be, a bit droopy if he’s honest, maybe even an inch too wide for his frame. “Were you here during spring? Really cold, huh, compared to LA?” Harry chuckles at Zayn, or he chuckles at his hands where he’s pulling a little on the bottom hem. The jacket needs an inch as well. “Oh, hey,” he says quickly when he sees Zayn take a step closer, “there’s this place, Grumpy Café, and I’m not implying anything,” Zayn’s right behind him now, so Harry can’t even turn and wave his hands around like he wanted to to shake out some tension, “but you’d love it. They don’t have soups though, so you’d have to order something else. Do you even like soup anymore?” he finishes. He’s only half-aware of how expectant his expression looks.

Harry doesn’t flinch, not on the outside anyway, because he watches Zayn raise his hands in something like slow motion – though in the moment, Harry’s not sure if he’s just imagining it or not. He has plenty of time to realize what’s happening and what Zayn’s doing in this carefully and painfully patient way, until his hands are hovering over Harry’s shoulders for the longest second Harry thinks he’s ever felt, so he has time to prepare for when Zayn places them on him, right there, in the reflection that Harry can’t take his eyes away from. The it still surprises him.

Harry watches Zayn smile and hears him say, “I miss you,” but it’s all distant and echoey – half here, half there, warped by the touch on his shoulders.

“Grumpy Café,” Harry repeats. He’s sure he’s trying to say something, but he isn’t completely sure what.

When Zayn shakes his head and says, “I can’t right now, but. Later? Early dinner, maybe?” Harry is pretty sure he wasn’t asking Zayn to lunch. He’s almost positive.

“Oh yeah, if you’re busy, we don’t have to– I mean–” They were friends at one point, they could have a conversation without either one of them stuttering or taking each other’s clothes off. It’s an abstract idea that floats around Harry’s head though, all he thinks about it the clothes and the taking them off.

“It’s fine, I just have to try on a suit and then I have a few more appointments.” Zayn looks behind them at Sarah, who’s lingering far enough away to not over-hear, but to still be able to see them. Now, Harry wishes she wasn’t clutching her phone in her hand. It’s not like Harry gets mobbed, there hasn’t been enough airplay or interviews, and they’ve only started building the hype around his comeback. He hasn’t even done a live performance yet, but Jeffrey made a bet on Harry and it turns out, people remember you even if your last hit was five years ago. It turns out, even six years later, they want to hear what you have to say.

Harry doesn’t say anything when Zayn takes a step back and smiles at him again, because he doesn’t know if he wants to thank him for the distance or cry because of it. Instead, Harry asks, “Here?” pitched slightly high, because this is Gucci and although he doesn’t know how much a suit is, he knows it’s a lot. On his own, Harry wouldn’t be able to wear what he’s wearing right now.

Zayn chuckles and it sounds like it’s a little nervous, then he scratches at the back of his neck. “I didn’t want anything fancy, but I didn’t have much say, really.”

Almost agreeing, Harry shakes his head and frowns. “What?”

“Mr. Malik?”

“Yes?” Harry doesn’t turn when Zayn does, just looks at Sarah in the mirror and watches her hand a hanger to Zayn. It looks exactly like the one she gave to Harry.

“This is it. Call me if you need anything.” Sarah gives them both a smile before she walks away and without saying anything else, Zayn goes too, down to the right where the dressing rooms are.

As soon as he does, Sarah is back behind Harry, grinning a little stupidly. “You know him?”

He thought it would, and it really does feel like a distant dream seeing Zayn again. “Um, yeah.”

“God,” she whines. “He’s  _ gorgeous _ .”

After about a second of wanting to sit down on the floor and cry a little, Harry sighs out an, “I know.” Zayn looks different, but still so much the same that Harry thinks he can agree without thinking too much about it.

“Who is he?”

Harry shrugs. He never knew how to answer that.  _ My Zayn _ would’ve worked a year ago. Now it’s just, “Zayn. I don’t know. A friend, I guess.”

“Lucky,” she says with a swipe at his arm. Harry wishes he could go out for a drink with Sarah, talk to her, see if she slaps her hand over the back of his head when he does something stupid, and keep her as his person if she does. She looks like she wouldn’t let Harry do anything stupid, and Harry needs someone like that here.

“Not really. Trust me.”

“Well,” she huffs and gives him a big grin. “The future Mrs. Malik is the luckiest woman on the planet, right? I mean, can you imagine? Waking up every morning to  _ that _ ?”

“I really, really can’t,” Harry says, because the one time he could’ve, he kicked Zayn out of bed. Literally. Now that he thinks about, he’s probably saved himself the trouble of holding on to that memory. “Wait.”

“What?”

It’s surreal asking, but, “Is he– Is Zayn getting married?”

“Yeah?” She frowns back at him. “Didn’t you say you were friends?”

“Yeah, friends,” his voice sounds far away, like it’s coming from another room. “Or something like that.”

Sarah says something else that makes her snort, but Harry only senses her walking away and then Zayn walking towards him in a fitted, all black Gucci suit. Distantly, Harry adds, the suit he’s going to walk down the aisle in, to himself. Though that’s probably the most important part, Harry realizes.

“You look–” Harry starts, but doesn’t know how to finish.  _ Good? Like it’s made for you? Like you’re engaged? _

“It’s alright,” Zayn mumbles as he comes to stand next to Harry. They’re sharing the reflection and it feel a little like an out-of-body experience. “Isn’t the one I pick out, but.”

“It’s not?”

“Nah, they have this dusty pink one? It’s not exactly flowers or anything,” Zayn chuckles and bumps his shoulder against Harry, making him stumble awkwardly. “But it was different, you know?”

Righting himself and looking down at his flowers, Harry says, “But you’re wearing the black one?” When he sees Zayn nod out of the corner of his eye, Harry adds, “To your wedding,” quietly, more to himself than to Zayn really, because it sounds wrong, ridiculous, like a sick joke that’s making him want to throw up. It’s not funny is the thing, it’s not funny at all.

When Zayn doesn’t say anything, just keeps standing there and not moving, maybe not even breathing like Harry, he wonders if this is the only confirmation he’s going to get: an awkward silence and his own heavy sigh that’s somewhere between acceptance and misery. They never talked about this, never about anything that had to do with  _ you and me _ ,  _ Harry and Zayn. _

“It looks alright,” Zayn says and pulls on the hem of the jacket. He has one button done and the other one left hanging loose, on a piece of yarn that’s probably holding it together better than Harry is right now. He nods at Harry with something close to a smile. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

“Yeah,” Harry looks down at the suit. It’s perfect. “Why?”

Zayn shrugs. “Very flowery.”

“–and?”

“It’s very you,” Zayn shrugs again and this time his smile doesn’t look wrong and painful, more mischievous, which is actually worse in the end, because it makes Harry think of ‘during’. He hasn’t thought of ‘during’ in weeks now, nothing but the ‘after’ and the ‘before’, clinging to them desperately. Zayn says, “It  _ suits  _ you,” and winks.

Harry laughs, because he knows he’s supposed to. He says, “Thanks,” back and fiddles with his suit more than he needs to, because it’s flowery  _ and _ perfect, it still fits him down to the very last stitch. Harry looks good.

With his hands down at his sides and his eyes on himself, Harry thinks  _ now or never _ , even if that’s never applied to Zayn and him. It was always  _ now _ or  _ some time later, because it’s inevitable, we’re inevitable _ . He never thought they would run out of time, not until they did. They’re not inevitable anymore, but Harry says, “I miss you too,” after a beat of silence that’s stretched so long it’s practically transparent between them and gives his voice an echo that sounds desperate even to Harry. Even though he doesn’t think he is.

They get changed and while Zayn has the covered hanger over his arm, Harry leaves his with Sarah to put in the back for Friday, when it’ll be delivered to his apartment and he’ll have to wear it without thinking about Zayn. Harry will try not to, but he can’t make any promises.

“So, early dinner?” Zayn asks with what sounds like a spring in his step, and for only half of a second, Harry finds himself wishing he’d trip and fall.

“Sure, yeah. Grumpy Café.”

“Okay, well.” Zayn takes a few steps backwards towards the door and almost reaches for the gaudy handles. “You still have my number.”

Harry can’t stop picturing Zayn walking down the aisle in that suit, skinny black tie, crisp white shirt, but all of his thoughts whirl to the tone of Zayn’s voice instead. He says it like he  _ knows _ Harry still has his number. Harry does, he doesn’t think he could ever forget it, but Zayn doesn’t know that. Harry could have deleted it and it would’ve made much, much more sense if he had. Especially when Chelsea sat him down awkwardly and told Harry she wasn’t expecting anything, that she wanted them to be on the same page, which was no expectations and no exclusivity, but especially no confusion about what they were doing. It was refreshing, but only until Harry thought of Zayn right afterwards. He should’ve deleted his number then, but he didn’t. And Zayn couldn’t possibly know that.

So when Zayn finally grips the handle and pulls the door open along with a gush of heat and humidity, Harry smiles and says, “I’ll call you.”

The look Zayn gives him right before he leaves and the AC jumps to cool down the heat that pushes in around him, means he knows Harry won’t. Zayn should know  _ that _ .

* * *

Harry is lying on his couch, feet up on the armrest and his head half hanging off the cushions, as he tries to follow the plot of  _ How to Get Away with Murder. _ If he had to bet on who did it, he’d probably end up losing all of his money, because he can barely keep track of all the characters, little less all the murders and schemes. All Harry knows is he’d be scared shitless being stuck in the same room as Annalise. But she does make for a lovely company on a late Wednesday night to drink a glass or two of wine Ly gave him the last time he came over with. Harry should probably have some qualms about being paid in alcohol to babysit, but he can’t find it in himself to be bothered, not if the wine is this good.

He has a big day on Friday, another red carpet where he needs to be all smiles and dimples, carefully styled hair that’s too short and keeps curling wrong around his ears. Getting a haircut was supposed to be a new start, symbolic and all, of something or other. Right now, it’s falling into his eyes and he keeps cursing Chelsea under his breath for indulging him in the stupid idea. Jeffrey still hasn’t seen it. He’s thinking of taking a photo right where he is and sending it with a,  _ what do you think? _

Harry doesn’t know what he thinks. He’s had three days with it and it’s been bothering him for only two and a quarter of those so far, so that, at least, is good. For how long he’s waited to have the locks he finally did, Harry should hate it one hundred percent of the time, but he doesn’t and that’s only eighty-three percent because just a handful of people have actually seen him with it. It’s not his own fault he likes the thought of looking wrong in people’s heads. If anyone is thinking about him, they’re thinking wrong.

When the episode ends and the credits have been playing for a bit, Harry queues up another one, refills his glass, takes a slurping sip, chuckles and opens up his email.

_ You should start drinking tea _ , is the subject line. He puts down  _ Coffee is bad for you (is it???)  _ as the first line in the list. Someone shouts on the TV and Harry lifts his eyebrows at the sound, but doesn’t look to see what’s happening. In the second line, he taps in  _ buy green tea and coffee, rice milk, rocket, tomatoes _ , and leaves it at that for now. The line after that is  _ shoes ???, _ because he’s wearing his running shoes thin, and then the line after that is  _ PINK _ .

He opens up his texts while taking another sip, and tries to type  _ lunch tomorrow?? _ one handed. He just about sends it as it is, with one  _ r  _ too many and only one question mark, when the phone starts ringing and he answers it with a laugh. He’s told Chelsea she spends too much time on her phone, because he’s pretty sure he can say that now, even if there still aren’t any expectations and there’s only a toothbrush in his bathroom, but nothing else of hers anywhere in his apartment. The toothbrush makes Harry think it’s okay to say things like that.

But then when he’s about to say something like, ‘Stop being on your phone all the time’, there’s Zayn saying, “Didn’t think you’d do this again,” instead and that sort of sucks all the air out of his lungs and he’s left saying nothing for a few dragged-out seconds where his heart feels like it’s going to burst.

“I’m sorry?” He sits up, confused, stuttering, because his mouth feels like it’s glued shut. Harry vaguely registers he’s suddenly and viscerally angry, this hot flash rushing up his spine even if he hears Zayn almost laughing into the phone. Zayn’s voice used to make him feel a lot of different things, but none of those was red hot anger.

“Yeah, you should be,” Zayn does laugh then, making a joke that is as far from funny as Harry’s punch-lines always are.

Harry doesn’t understand why so many people do drugs when it feels like you’re floating two inches above the ground if you just run into someone you loved, but who didn’t love you back and is now getting married to someone they  _ do _ love, and you’re still not really sure you don’t love them anymore. It’s complicated, and it feels like it’s bad for your health just as much, but surely it must be easier and cheaper than scoring an eight ball.

As soon as he got back to his apartment, Harry kept his back against his door for physical support and called Nym for the emotional part, but the moment she answered, Harry couldn’t say anything except, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t  _ any _ one tell me?” He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye and willed himself to stay on his feet.

She huffed and probably sat down. Without Harry explaining anything further, she asked a frustrated, “Who did?”

“ _ Sarah _ ,” Harry practically shouted, because he never thought Sarah from Gucci was going to give him the news of his life. Because that’s what it was, right? It was a once in a lifetime type thing, to hear Zayn was getting married. Harry knows he definitely couldn’t handle it happening again, so it better have been a one-time thing.

“Who’s Sarah?”

“She’s not my best friend! Or my sister, or any of my other friends for that matter, because all my other friends are bad,  _ bad  _ people who want to hurt me. You  _ hurt _ me.”

“Harry,” she sighed in that patient, waiting,  _ don’t be dramatic _ type of way that Harry’s warranted every other time except for right then. Then, he needed an explanation and an apology and maybe a little bit of groveling as well.

“No, no no,” he shook his head and closed his eyes just to make it all disappear for a while. He slid down to the floor and because he lived alone and barely anyone knew where that was, he tucked his face inside the collar of his t-shirt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry asked in a near whisper. There were five hundred different ways he could have reacted and maybe Harry had the smallest amount of right for this one out of all of them, but that wasn’t enough to stop him.

“Honey,” Nym started with a slight coo that was probably meant to calm him down. It wasn’t working. “I just… I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how, I swear, I wanted to tell you.”

“You didn’t,” he said it like an accusation, because that’s what it was. “I know everyone else…”  _ They didn’t know know, so they didn’t think I should know, that I had a right to know, _ Harry thought. “But you didn’t tell me.”

“I knew I was coming up in two weeks, and I thought maybe with some ice cream and me actually being there to tell you. I thought it would’ve gone over better.”

That would’ve sounded rational before. But then, sitting on the floor with his face inside his t-shirt and his eyes closed and wet, it sounded like an excuse Harry didn’t know what to do with.

“I ran into him today,” he told Nym and listened to her breath hitch. “He was trying on his wedding suit. I invited him to lunch.” It sounded stupid, more than it did when Harry actually told Zayn about the café and he took it as an invitation Harry wanted it to be. “I’m not gonna go.”

“Maybe you should.”

“What’s– Who is it?”

Nym sighed, but didn’t pause long enough for Harry to whimper out a pathetic  _ please _ . He didn’t know why, but he wanted to know, needed to hear it. Maybe he thought he’d feel better if he knew, or Harry knew he wouldn’t, that he’d feel worse and that was what he actually wanted. “Jenny Carden. She’s from New York, so they decided to have the ceremony there and,” she did pause then, so Harry had plenty of time to think  _ what else _ desperately. “They moved. To New York. So.”

“So,” Harry started to say slowly, very slowly, because he needed to know he understood that correctly. “So, now Zayn and his - his fiancé, live in New York.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a big town,” he said, straightened up and untucked his face. He hoped Nym would go along with it. “It’s huge, like a metropolis or something.”

“Right, exactly. New York is  _ huge. _ ”

“I’ve lived here for months and I’ve only seen like, a little bit of it,” Harry went on, waving his hand around the apartment, pointing from the couch to the window and down the hallway to where his bathroom was. He swiped his thumb underneath his eyes. “Is it bigger than LA?”

“Probably? Maybe? Wait, let me check.”

“I bet there’s more people here, it’s crowded everywhere you go. Did I tell you that? The crowds are actually massive, plus there’s no like, ocean or anything.”

“Harry, New York  _ has  _ an ocean.”

“Yeah, but not like  _ that _ , you know.” He crosses bridges every day and though none of them go over actual oceans, they still counted. “There’s no sandy beaches or anything.”

“Oceans or not, there’s probably a tiny tiny chance you’ll run into Zayn again.”

Acknowledging what they were talking it about ruined the mood. “Yeah, I know.” There’s a part of him, a part bigger than a half that’s not so much shaped like a human sized gap, than it is the size of a crater in the middle of where everything used to be and isn’t anymore. Harry’s gotten good at stepping around it, jumping over it, avoiding it a little bit for his sanity and a lot more because he doesn’t know what to do with it. No one can fill it, and Harry’s tried. He doesn’t know if seeing Zayn again will make it better, take some of the hurt that came with it away, or make it so much worse Harry will collapse into himself.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“I don’t forgive you,” Harry mumbled. It wasn’t to be a shithead or to annoy Nym, though it was a definite plus that it did. There’s a code, a best friend code that Nym didn’t respect like she should’ve. “Because you should’ve told me, but I had to hear it from Sarah.”

“How’s Chelsea?”

Harry had to take a breath then to not hang up. “Nym.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know.”

After they hung up, Nym texted to ask if Harry still wanted her and Louis to come down in two weeks. Taking his time to think about it, he texted her back the next day that he still hasn’t decided. And that wasn’t just to annoy her either. He really didn’t know if he wanted to see them now.

For a time, it felt like Harry was doing everything he could to not remember. It’s not like he could forget – he’s tried and failed enough to be sure of that now – but just not having to remember every day from the moment he wakes up till when he falls asleep, and sometimes in-between those as well, would do. So he does everything he can. He writes, sings, and he makes new friends. Harry plasters on that dimpled half smile that curls to the left so some of those new friends will get friendlier. If he does enough, maybe he won’t have the time to remember. He wants the new to replace the old, New York paved over Los Angeles.

But he can’t do that now, though, because somehow Zayn got his new number and decided to call him and bring the entire Los Angeles County with it.

“Why are you calling me?”

Like he doesn’t hear him, Zayn asks, “Where are you? Are you home?”

“Why does it matter?” Harry sits up on the couch, wine glass still in one hand that’s now much too empty.

“I don’t know, I guess I thought we could talk.”

Harry registers the slight hesitation in Zayn’s voice, but he shakes his head against it and says, “You’re not coming over,” as steady as he can. He can run into Zayn, just as long as he never steps foot into this apartment and infuses himself into it like he did before.

“I would’ve gotten your address instead of your number then, wouldn’t I?” Zayn keeps his voice light, or he tries too. Maybe he’s forgotten that Harry knows him enough to hear the difference, but that’s exactly what Harry doesn’t want to think about.

“Why?” Harry sighs. “Why are you calling me?”

There’s a beat and then another, and then Zayn says, “Because I miss you?”

Harry has a right to be angry. He doesn’t know how he’d justify it, but he’s sure that there’s something that gives him the right to be as angry at Zayn as he wants to be. And Harry wants to be. “What do you want me to say?” he asks in the end, because even if there’s a tiny part of him that wants to take Zayn out to lunch again and catch up and hear all about Jenny, there’s still that gap that hurts.

“I don’t know.” Harry bets everything he’s ever owned that Zayn’s scratching at the back of his neck as he thinks about what to say next. Everything he owns. He sounds nervous and a little airy, like he can’t keep up with his breath. “I thought maybe we could talk? Since we’re both here and– I don’t know. I just wanted to talk.”

Harry drains what’s left in his glass and gets up to go fill it up. “Okay,” he says and nods to himself. He can do this. Before everything, him and Zayn were friends. Or maybe they never were, since Harry always had that lingering hope at the edge of his intentions, but he can do this. “What do you want to talk about?”

Zayn hums an awkward, “Um,” as Harry pours himself an almost overflowing glass. “Over the phone? I thought he could–”

“We can talk now. I don’t mind,” Harry cuts him off, because he’s decided right in this moment that he actually doesn’t want to see Zayn. Not right now.

“Okay?” Zayn drawls and then with a deep breath Harry hears over the phone, he says, “I wanted to apologize,” that flusters Harry enough to almost drop his glass. “I know that what we were doing, before, it wasn’t right for me to ask that of you. And, I wanted to apologize.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say, so he stays stupendously quiet and hopes Zayn will keep talking for him.

“Like,” Zayn starts, as awkward as he always did and Harry almost smiles at that. “I realize that we had different expectations and that I was maybe thinking of myself more than I should have. You wanted a relationship and I wasn’t, like -” Zayn huffs. “So, I wanted to say sorry and I can’t believe you’re making me do this over the phone.”

Harry does smile then, but he doesn’t let Zayn know that. He frowns instead and hopes Zayn can hear it in his tone. “Did Nym make you do this?”

“No,” Zayn says, short and serious. “I wanted to for a while, I just… I didn’t know how?”

“That was okay. For a first try.”

“Could’ve been better. I hope– I, um, Louis gave me your number.”

Harry doesn’t say that when he got a new phone, he also got a new number on, what he told himself, was a complete whim. It definitely wasn’t so the people that Harry didn’t want to talk to wouldn’t be able to just call him one day. It was a useless investment, apparently. 

Swallowing a gulp and some of that anger down, that’s now at a warm orange simmer, Harry leans against the counter and sighs. He doesn’t know if he cares that Louis gave Zayn his number – either that he did or that it was Louis, probably talking about it while they smoked in a back alley at Casey’s – or if he can even stay angry when it comes to Zayn. 

He apologized, Harry can’t believe he apologized. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with it now. Accept it? Or admit that he shouldn’t have agreed to anything back then, because apparently they both knew Harry was setting himself up for a cliff dive without thinking about the landing – just the jump and the leap and the flying through the air with his arms spread wide, catching the wind in his hands.

It wasn’t just a moment in time. That’s what it is. It was an entire stretch of it, months of lunches and talks and watching Zayn smoke with his hand hanging outside the window, and never kissing without biting too. Harry wonders if Zayn still does that, has that same mason jar as an ashtray, keeps five cigarettes in a metal box inside his jacket pocket so he doesn’t smoke too much, only ever has green lighters. There’s a whole list of things that Harry keeps wondering if they’re still true or not. Maybe Zayn doesn’t even smoke anymore. Harry wants to ask, but he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry too,” he says, feels like he should in the end. Maybe they can do this in a full circle, since they’re basically back to being half strangers sitting on that train. “I know it was stupid, doing what we were doing,” it’s the only way he can put it without going into painful details. Nymeria told him, months ago. Maybe Harry should’ve listened. “We were both a bit stupid.”

“A bit.”

“And now you’re–” Harry takes a breath, holds it, and says, “getting married.”

A second drags by where Zayn hums something that sounds like, “I am,” that Harry hears, he does, but it’s still hard to wrap his head around it. He tries not to think about how it had taken Zayn less than eight months to fall in love with someone so much, that he asked them to marry him. The hardest part to think about, that makes Harry want to close his eyes and whimper pathetically, is that Harry couldn’t manage to make Zayn feel something more than friends for him in six months. They really are back to where they started - Harry still keeps falling and there’s still no one ready to catch him. He goes back to the couch to sit down.

“How is…?” Harry hates how unsteady he sounds. He wants to be a brick stacked wall with concrete and metal, impenetrable, unbreakable. He has to close his eyes to ask, “How are you?”

Zayn laughs quietly, but it sounds more nervous than anything else. “I’m busy, you know, with planning and cake tasting and everything.”

Harry isn’t quite sure how or why, but he ends up listening to Zayn talk about which cake he preferred and the one Jenny ended up going with, because apparently, sprinkles of vanilla aren’t appropriate for weddings.

It takes two weeks for Harry to stop being surprised when his phone rings every other day while he’s splayed over the couch with a glass of wine. It also takes Harry two weeks to stop pretending like he doesn’t have the TV on mute so he won’t miss it when it does ring. But it takes longer to admit to himself that every time Zayn says, “Hey popstar, what are you doing?” instead of hello, he falls even more in love with him. If Harry can help it, he’ll never admit to that. Through it all, Harry keeps thinking,  _ How am I still so stupid? _

The difference this time is that Harry doesn’t want to go around confessing his feeling and being all pathetic about fate and destiny and  _ I thought we were meant to be _ ’s. There was a deep realization inside his chest that if Nym called him and asked, “So, have you talked to Zayn again?” Harry would’ve told her that yes, “We talk almost every day. It’s nice.” And though when he did, Nymeria yelled for a few minutes about boundaries, and fools and once and shame and twice, Harry took it with a shrug. There’s something about never being the one to call but always being the one to answer that makes this thing they’re doing marginally more okay than if it was the other way around. That, for a lot of reasons, is why Harry doesn’t even question what they’re doing.

“So how’s the venue? Have you found anything yet?” Harry asks around a bite of cake Zayn had recommended he treat himself to. It’s good, chocolate with just a hint of a strawberry somewhere. Harry didn’t ask if it’s the one they ended up picking for the wedding. He’d rather enjoy it as best as he can.

It’s one of the things they talk about. It’s either the wedding, New York or Sammy. Sometimes, they’ll breach into a movie that’s playing in front of them both while they talk, but it feels too familiar and uncomfortable, because it’s too much like before. Somehow, along the second or third time they talked, they’ve reached a consensus to avoid all topics that would bring with them painful flashes of memories. Like Harry’s music, Zayn and his job, though he mentions looking for one once. Somehow, it works.

“I really don’t care where it ends up being, but Jenny’s a bit more particular about it all,” Zayn says around a tired yawn. Harry would’ve chosen words like picky or controlling, but he guesses particular is just as good. Sometimes,  _ not me _ flashes in front of his eyes. Those are the days he ends up cutting their conversations short, so he can catch his breath.

Harry still says, “She should be, it’s her big day.”

“Yeah, yeah, she knows that, is the problem.”

“Zayn Malik,” Harry doesn’t think about it anymore, how it hurts sometimes when they hang up and he remembers everything they’ve talked about and how none of it had anything to do with anything. It’s like they keep talking about nothing. “Are you saying you don’t want to bend to your fiancé’s every demand?”

“How dare I, I know,” Zayn laughs and Harry joins him easily. He might shove his mouth full of cake, but no one knows, so it’s okay. “It’s just…” Zayn’s going to say something that Harry doesn’t know yet, something  _ new _ . Something that he’d tuck behind his ear a year ago. Now, Harry will just listen and leave it where it is. “You know I don’t make much on a substitute salary and it’s getting… It’s a bit bigger than we first planned.” At first, they planned to live in Los Angeles, Zayn’s told him that before. It just happened that they moved, just a coincidence, just Jenny wanting to be closer to her family. Zayn’s still looking to get a permanent job somewhere. “And I’m not,” Zayn goes on quietly, in a fast whisper. “I’m not even paying for anything anymore, because I could barely afford to cover the cake. Her parents are  _ helping _ , sort of.”

“And that’s bad?” Harry asks slowly as he eyes the cake that actually would be pricey now that he thinks about adding up a few tiers of it.

“It was supposed to be small, just family and close friends,” Zayn says a bit frantically, to which Harry adds  _ and I’m neither of those _ unhelpfully to himself. He’s not even pretending like his invitation isn’t going to get lost in the mail. “Now the whole New York is going to be there.”

“That’s eight million people.”

“What?”

Harry looked it up. The crowds that are everywhere is basically eight million people walking around an island that could maybe fit comfortably two at best.

“I doubt the entirety of New York will be there,” he says instead.

“It feels like that.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry shrugs as he tries to stick a piece of strawberry on his fork. Nym told him a few days ago that he’s being weird about talking to Zayn, which was weird because he’s been perfectly normal about it. Then she said Harry not throwing a tantrum about it is weird. He decidedly resented her. He also formally uninvited her from coming for a visit anytime soon. She hung up and he shrugged then too. “Talk to Jenny about it. Isn’t that what marriage is supposed to be about? Compromise and communication?”

“When did you get so wise about relationships?”

“I don’t watch all those romantic comedies for nothing.” It’s not like it’s Chelsea’s who’s taught him a thing or two with all the talking they seem to be doing about themselves and 

what they are, or what they’re not.

The next time Zayn calls, the first thing he says is, “We settled on a venue that sits three hundred,” and Harry feels two things very strongly. He misses the way Zayn always says popstar with a popping ‘p’, and he’s decidedly angry about not being invited now. He’d never even dream about coming, but it would be nice to be able to at least have the courtesy of not showing up. To make up for it, every other thing that comes out of his mouth is, “Well, Chelsea says that...” for the next thirty minutes. When Zayn asks who Chelsea is, Harry lies and says his girlfriend. After that, the conversations slowly lulls to a stop and it feels like they both hang up without even saying goodbye.

That’s why when his phone pings while he’s shaking some producer’s hand at yet another event that might have something to do with some sort of a magazine, Harry doesn’t check it immediately. He stands there only a little awkwardly while the circle of people around him all chuckle or nod or gasp when someone says something. It’s all incredibly thrilling, but Harry’s been out of the spotlight for so long, the people he used to make chuckle and fawn over him aren’t here anymore. After another round of the sort of slow, sage nods with squinting eyes and pursed lips they all know means none of them are actually listening to each other talk, Harry gives them a small wave and goes to find the bar.

When he gets there, leaning one elbow on the edge of it, he digs his phone out of the pocket. It’s half a surprise Zayn texted him after how they ended their conversation yesterday, but the other half of it is that Zayn’s waited this long to text.

_ wanna come over ? ?  _ It reads, no caps and too many spaces.  _ home alone . bored . could use some company : ) _

The smiley at the end makes Harry’s hair stand at the back of his neck and though he knows he shouldn’t, deep down in his gut where something is trying to scream at him about how bad of an idea this is, something that sounds a lot like  _ don’t do it _ ,  _ don’t be stupid, _ Harry sends back,  _ address _ ? and makes an Irish exit he doesn’t have enough time to think about. No one even notices he leaves.

Harry doesn’t register at first that the address he ends up putting into the Uber app is in Williamsburg. He barely even notices downtown flashing by his windows and he doesn’t pay the doorman any attention when he asks, “Mr. Styles?” and he hums a, “Yeah.” Only about half way up to the thirteenth floor in the elevator does Harry realize where he is and what he’s doing and how it’s exactly what he said he wasn’t going to do.

It’s too late to change his mind, Harry tries to rationalize with himself. He can’t leave now, the doorman will look at him all funny and definitely tell  _ Mr. Malik _ how his guest ran away on the brink of tears. Or maybe not on the brink already, Harry gives himself the credit.

It’s too late anyway, because the elevator doors open and then he’s crossing the hallway in two steps until he’s standing in front of a big dark wooden door.

“Hey,” Zayn swings the door open with a wide smile and his sweats so low on his hips, Harry actually looks away. Or he almost does, at least. It’s the thought that counts. “What happened with your hair?”

Harry swallows, says, “Hi,” back and then stays silent long enough for Zayn to step aside and say, “Come on, come in.”

After seeing him a few weeks ago, Harry had this idea in his head, how it would feel to see Zayn again in a much less Gucci setting and something more comfortable instead. Harry had pictured the Grumpy Café though, because he didn’t want to indulge in soft gray rugs on the floor or a big eat-you-up-when-you-sit-down couch, spacious but clearly lived in spaces, or anything but a full buttoned up from his toes to the middle of his forehead outfit. Something like what Harry’s wearing.

Sarah picked this one out too, a red one with even more colorful flowers than the last. It made him stand out amongst the classic black and ball gowns and short dresses, but standing in Zayn’s living room, when he’s only wearing cut off sweats and a t-shirt Harry could probably see through if he indulged in staring long enough, he feels like a sore thumb. However pretty of a one.

“Do you want something to drink? Or are you hungry?” Zayn’s asking him as he’s walking down to the left and into what Harry thinks is the kitchen. He leaves Harry standing there, three steps into the living room that’s all big windows and gray on gray color schemes. Harry’s still trying to figure out how Zayn’s been living fifteen minutes away and he hadn’t even noticed, so he says back a quiet, “Something to drink yeah, thanks.”

It’s eerie, walking further into a place that isn’t just Zayn’s and even though he tries not to, he does, Harry rakes his eyes over everything he can see and wonders if it’s Zayn’s or Jenny’s. The one lounger he can see on the balcony, alone and a lively green is probably the only thing that screams one more than the other. Everything else is diluted to the point Harry doesn’t know if it all came with the apartment when they moved in. Together, because they love each other and they’re getting married. Before Zayn comes back, Harry sits on the couch and hopes it does end up swallowing him up.

“I hope this is okay.”

“What is it?”

Zayn smiles, hands him the glass. “Vodka and cranberry.”

“Oh, it’s that kind of a night, huh?” Harry tries for a joke and it’s not that it doesn’t make Zayn laugh, but it doesn’t make Harry think coming over was a good idea either. There’s still that voice, now louder than before, screaming at him to  _ get out, get out, get out _ . Harry swallows down a gulp and hopes it’ll make it quiet down. It tastes as bitter as he hoped.

“Where were you anyway? You look…”

They end up leaning back against opposite sides of the couch, enough space between then for maybe four other people that Harry’s happy aren’t there, because he wouldn’t know how to handle more than just Zayn at once. That’s enough.

He runs his hand through his hair, still not entirely used to how short it is. “There was this, event, I guess. A magazine something.”

“Fancy,” Zayn snickers into his glass. He’s acting so normal that Harry thinks he has to be exaggerating the weirdness of this. Except Harry really doesn’t think he is.

“Promo, you know,” he sighs and tries to put it out of his mind, all of it, everything. He drinks a much smaller sip and actually enjoys it. Zayn’s always made a good drink.

“How’s that been going, anyway? The writing and all of that?”

Harry watches Zayn hitch his legs up on the couch, how he tucks himself into the corner of it. As much as Harry’s happy there isn’t anyone else here with them, it feels like there’s miles between them instead, like they’re both still on their own coasts with their own lives that align only a little, only through a once upon a time.

And the thing is, Harry doesn’t know if he wants to tell Zayn. Or, he knows he does, but maybe he shouldn’t. Harry liked the space between them, like they’re both here but not really, like it doesn’t have to be weird if Harry takes every precaution to make it as easy as it can be, even if that means he has to talk about Zayn’s wedding as something he looks forward to.

“I have a song on the radio,” Harry ends up saying with a shrug.

“I know.  _ Sign of the Times _ .”

_ I thought it was _ , Harry thinks every time. “Yeah, and the rest is… coming along.”

“That’s good,” Zayn chirps enthusiastically, nodding and everything. He sounds a bit like Anne when Harry talks about his music with her.

Harry asks, “But how’s the wedding planning? You’ve settled on the venue?” then and listens and hums, empties the glass and even follows Zayn to the kitchen as they keep on talking. Neither of them mention how they’ve already talked about this.

Zayn has a fuller beard, thick and as black as his hair. It looks like it’d be coarse to the touch, bristly and sharp. His eyes are just as bright as they’ve always been, wide and brown and golden if it wasn’t so close to midnight. He scrunches up his nose every time Harry manages to make him laugh with a joke that’s meant to divert attention and is more self-indulgent than anything else. Zayn looks the same as he always has, maybe less stressed than Harry remembers him, but he looks like he does in Harry’s head, except in all the ways Harry doesn’t know him anymore, Zayn’s different too.

At some point, Zayn picks up the remote and turns on the TV but leaves it on mute, and Harry shrugs off his jacket, but leaves his shirt tucked in and doesn’t think about why even for a second. He doesn’t think about where Jenny is either, barely remembers he was supposed to text Chelsea to come over when he got home after the party, because it’s the weekend and she usually stays over on Fridays. He’s started looking forward to it.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Zayn asks when he’s in the middle of telling Harry how excited Trisha is for the wedding.

“Here?” Harry’s in a bit of a daze, unfocused and somewhere else. He’s been somewhere else as soon as Zayn stretched his feet on the coffee table and a movie started playing in the background of their completely normal conversation.

“Nah,” Zayn stand up and nods for Harry to get up too, “On the balcony.”

“Ah, yes. The balcony.”

“Weirdo,” Zayn says under his breath when he passes him and bumps their hands. “Come on.”

“It’s not my fault you used to smoke in the living room before.”

Zayn laughs, “Jenny would kill me.”

“It’s your place too,” Harry shrugs to himself, not entirely sure why he’s taking Zayn’s side, since he’d never let Zayn smoke in his place either. Well, besides the few times that he did.

Zayn shakes his head but doesn’t say anything else. The doors slide open and they step out, right on top of the river and the skyline that only makes Harry’s breath catch a little.

And there they are, elbows brushing while Zayn lights up his cigarette and they’re much smaller than they were just a moment before. They’re just Harry and Zayn now, two people not looking at each other while they keep their eyes in front of them and hum into the air long enough for Zayn to stub out this one and light up another cigarette.

For all the times Harry wanted to be here with Zayn and Louis, now that he is, outside with a twirl of smoke over his head, Harry doesn’t know what to say. He’s sure Louis’ never had this problem.

There’s a list of things Harry can alphabetize from a to z, start at the back and work his way forward, that range from a simple  _ why? _ to  _ are you sorry for how it all happened?  _ And then,  _ if you could, would you change anything? _ in the middle. Everything Harry could possibly ask, even from before, all the things he didn’t let himself think about, he could say them now, ask them, but his tongue is too heavy and there’s a lump in his throat. His chest feels too small for the breaths he’s making himself take. It’s all too small and too big at once. Harry has to work to swallow it all down.

“I still like LA better,” is what Zayn says, because he’s never been good at silences, and though Harry appreciates the distraction for what it is, he doesn’t think it’s going to make him breathe any easier.

“New York isn’t all bad.”

Zayn makes a noise between a hum and a scoff as he exhales a puff of smoke above their heads. Harry knows then, that he hasn’t been weird about it, about this, him and Zayn and Zayn and him, because it feels surreal to be here, in this moment with Zayn and not think about what it would be like to have everything come out differently than it did. Or at least not think about it too much or too hard, just as a lingering thing of possibility Harry’s going to hang on to because he has all the right to.

There isn’t any wish that time would stop though. Harry doesn’t want this to be bigger than it is now, here, the two of them together.

He bumps his shoulder against Zayn and says, “ _ Look in thy heart and write _ .”

Zayn gives him a small smile. “You remembered that,” he says with a breath.

“I liked it. I’ve been reading some poetry since moving here.” Harry doesn’t add that it’s all been from the sixteenth century, but he doesn’t think he needs to anyway.

“Yeah? What’s another one you liked?” Zayn turns towards him, leaning an elbow against the rail.

Harry clears his throat and recites, “ _ Gather ye rose-buds while ye may _ ,” quietly and self-consciously, because he remembers finding that in a collection of some sort and thinking  _ this is it, this is us, _ when the read the first four lines.

“That’s,” Zayn nods and looks down between them, “That’s a good one.”

“What’s your favorite?” Harry asks as he reaches forward and pokes a quick finger at Zayn’s thumb. Absently, he pinches Zayn’s knuckle and hooks his finger around it while Zayn thinks. Harry wonders if he’s even allowed to touch him anymore.

“ _ Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate _ ,” Zayn starts, his voice louder than Harry expects it to be. “ _ That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is a death which cannot choose, but weep to have that which it fears to lose _ .”

By the time Zayn finishes and Harry breathes again, his list is about two hundred items longer. He tightens the barely there hold he has on Zayn’s finger. “Which one is that?”

“Shakespeare. It’s,” Zayn turns his hand over, palm up towards Harry so that it looks enough like an offer Harry takes carefully. “It’s one of his sonnets.”

“It’s about time,” Harry says a beat too late for their words to flow seamlessly. It’s all torn stitches and gaping holes now.

“About never having enough of it,” Zayn says with a slow nod. He tightens his fingers around Harry’s.

It ends up being easier than it should be, than they have any right, to lean closer into each other until Harry can feel how Zayn’s breath stutters on his chin. There’s no fanfare, barely any hint of the want and desperation Harry had expected to feel being this close to Zayn again. When they breathe, their noses touch and Harry lets it linger, that moment between them, before they fall into each other and just kiss, like it’s what they should be doing.

Harry’s sure he should be able to taste how wrong it is on Zayn’s tongue, but he really doesn’t, just cranberries and smoke, so he presses himself closer to him, from hips to chest, and even tilts his head a little to make it easier.

But nothing ever is, so there’s no reason why this should be any different. After nipping at Harry’s lip only once, Zayn pulls away and says, “Come on, let’s go back inside,” on a breath that is even more ragged than Harry’s. 

Harry nods and goes to follow him inside, sees them sitting on the couch already. He knows that the space for all those people who aren’t there would be gone and they’d sit closer than they probably ever did before. Harry doesn’t want to let go of Zayn’s hand. He doesn’t let himself imagine what else they’d do inside.

Harry let’s go, and turns his nod into a quick shake. He has to close his eyes to do it, but he manages to say, “I should go.”

And Zayn only looks like he wants to protest for a second before he says, “Yeah, okay. I’ll walk you out.”

Harry doesn’t expect Zayn to text him  _ come over ? ill make dinner _ , the next day, but he does. And Harry doesn’t expect to text back  _ 8ish? _ But he does as well. What he does expect is both of them ignoring the night before. Unsurprisingly, they do.

What Zayn ends up doing is order enough Chinese food for at least a small army, but Harry doesn’t complain. He doesn’t next Saturday either, when Zayn orders them four pizzas, two with half and half toppings, because he didn’t know what Harry likes. Instead of telling Zayn he could’ve just asked, Harry has a slice of each with a beer and then runs two extra miles the next morning because he thinks he should. He meets Chelsea after for breakfast and barely touches his food.

It’s a week after that, almost the middle of September already, when Harry is out with Chelsea and Tiffany, Andreas, Adam, Nicola and all the others that Harry still doesn’t quite remember the names of. It’s a Friday night in a hot new bar that actually opened two months ago, but they’ve all been too busy to notice. Chelsea is sitting next to him on the bench that’s pressed against the wall, Adam on his other side, next to Nicola, with the rest scattered around or at the bar, waiting for their drinks. She has one of her legs thrown over his knees and Harry has a hand on it, keeping her close like he always does.

They’re talking about fashion week, some more enthusiastically than others, when Adam says, “Harry’s practically a model in all of those suits.”

It successfully steers the conversation and all of everyone’s attention right at him, which makes him blush, but it’s more of a perfunctory response than anything else.

“At least he’s not afraid of wearing something bold.”

“They’re  _ flowers _ ,” Adam scoffs.

“They’re pretty,” Harry amends. “And it’s not just flowers.”

“How could I forget the glitter?”

“Yeah, how could you?” Chelsea says as she leans around Harry to punch at Adam’s shoulder. Then she tucks herself against Harry’s side and whispers, “The new one is my favorite.”

Harry sent her a photo from the dressing room in the morning as he only contemplated sending it to Zayn too, and she’s been talking about it ever since. The thing with Chelsea is that she doesn’t try to be something she’s not. She likes expensive lunches, even if she only orders toasties, she likes champagne and she doesn’t want to get out of bed on Sundays, so she doesn’t. Harry never has to wonder what she’s thinking, because she always tells him. Usually he doesn’t even need to ask. He’s thought about the contrast that paints against someone who’s always needed minutes to find the right words and even then not making much sense, but Harry didn’t linger on it. He likes Chelsea for being so open, but he’s always had a spot for people holding everything a little too closely and too tightly as well.

It’s right after eleven that beers turn into cocktails and shots of tequila, because Adam cannot physically bring himself to say no, even though Harry thinks he should. It’s half an hour and two long island ice teas later that his phone vibrates in his pocket. It’s all very ironic, sort of movie-like, how Harry is laughing and Chelsea keeps lightly scratching at the back of his neck as he pulls it out of his pocket and unlocks it.

“Don’t be a snob, Chels,” Adam says too loudly and Chelsea shoots back, “Don’t be a dick, Adam,” as quick as anything, right when Harry reads,  _ come over ? ill make us drinks ; P _

It probably means something, it definitely does, how quick Harry is to kiss Chelsea’s cheek and lie, “Think I’m gonna go home. See you tomorrow?”

She doesn’t say anything then, but she wants to, Harry can tell and there’s this big, swollen, bruised part of him that wants her to. But she doesn’t even say how they both thought they were going home together tonight. She just smiles and kisses him back, squeezes at his hand when he stands up and says, “Call me,” before she goes back to arguing with Adam.

After a beat of standing at their table and looking around at all his new friends, at Chelsea, waiting for he doesn’t even know what, Harry waves and starts making his way towards the almost-skyscrapers at the edge of Williamsburg.

The doorman gives him a nod when he passes him in the lobby and Harry doesn’t even have to keep his eyes open to push the button for the thirteenth floor. As he’s standing there, turned towards the doors, so he doesn’t have to look at himself in the mirror behind his back, Harry still feels like he’s waiting for something. He just doesn’t know what.

“Remember when we met,” Zayn says, leaning against the railing of the balcony. Zayn practically pushed them outside with their drinks as soon as Harry walked in, saying something about fresh air and a cool breeze. It’s humid and he’s smoking, but Harry doesn’t mention it. “I told you that thing about slowing down?”

_ And I listened and then time stopped, and then I didn’t know what to think anymore,  _ Harry adds to himself, because of course he remembers. “Yeah.”

Zayn looks at him from the corner of his eye for a second before he says, “I might have been giving you advice someone gave to me once,” like he’s admitting to something. And Harry wants to know what.

“Someone?” he asks, because that’s still easier to focus on than Zayn falling in love left and right. Though he didn’t, Harry guesses. Zayn fell in love once and then got on one knee. And now he went and did it again. Just twice, no before or during or after.

“My mom.”

Harry frowns. “Wasn’t she… happy?” And then, with a thick and dry swallow, Harry stutters out, “The first time?” because this is the second that Zayn’s been engaged.  _ Christ, _ Harry thinks not for the first time. _ Engaged.  _ Harry puts his glass down on the tiles. He’s had enough.

“Not really,” Zayn chuckles. If Harry didn’t know him still, it would sound genuine. “Or not right away. She thought there was a baby on the way.”

“How old were you?”  _ When you dropped on one knee and asked her to be your forever.  _ It’s not an image Harry can picture vividly and he’s thankful for that more than he can ever say, but he still doesn’t know what Zayn’s first fiancé looked like. Harry hasn’t seen Jenny yet, not in person and not in a blurry photo where she’d be smiling at Zayn – because everyone smiles at Zayn. He thinks of the  _ yet _ , and hopes it stays like that for a while.

“Eighteen.”

“You sure there wasn’t a baby?” Harry asks, going for a joke, going for lightheartedness instead of a vice that clenches around his heart with a grip he can feel in his toes.

It works and Zayn laughs, even if Harry doesn’t. Especially not when Zayn jokes back, “And there isn’t one now either, if you’re wondering.”

Harry really really wasn’t. He doesn’t take a sip of the whiskey-coke, swallows dry instead, and tries not to choke on his own spit.

“So,” he says, short and quiet, but still far too loud. He guesses he doesn’t need to ask, but there’s something telling him that he needs to hear it, at least once. He turns towards Zayn and smiles as best as he can. “You’re all happy and in love now, huh?”

There’s a moment that’s either far too short or it stretches into infinity, Harry isn’t sure, between his question and Zayn saying, “I am, yeah.” It’s that moment that Harry will blame for saying, “It’s fast thought,” if he has to, because he can’t bite his tongue before it’s out there, sounding as bitter and sour as it tastes. “Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well,” Zayn shrugs, but Harry can tell his shoulders have gone stiff and tight. He slurps a sip. “You know how it is.”

_ I do, god, I do _ . Harry hums a meaningless “Mmm,” in an offhand sort of way where he could be agreeing or not. He clears his throat and though Harry doesn’t know if he should tell Zayn this, he starts with, “I’ve only ever been in love once.” Harry’s never said it out loud before, the fact that he’s actually incredibly more pathetic than everyone gives him credit for.

“Oh?” And at least Zayn decides to look at him then, even if it’s from the corner of his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Harry shakes his head at himself and admits, “It just made me a bit stupid,” like that's the only thing it's made him do. It’s just that saying, “But I’ve never been  _ in _ love, you know?” with his eyes squinted as he actually thinks about it, “In the kind of movie-like whirlwind requited sort of love. Never had that before,” out in the open, but especially where Zayn can hear him, feels a lot like he’s opening up his chest to show him the gap he carries around. 

“How did you figure that?”

Harry gives him a look, and Zayn gives one back.

“I think we all want that kind of love, sweet and warm,” because Harry does, but he never really knew what love even was, not entirely, just little glimpses and ideas of what it might be, half formed wishes maybe, being a little too hopeful about it all. A mixture of all three, but it didn’t make it love in the end. Infatuation, at best, a sort of dependent happiness, something that wasn’t always Harry’s fault. And that’s a bit like what love turned out to be too – not entirely his fault, less sweet than he thought it would be.

“And now?” Zayn asks him carefully all of a sudden, when they haven’t been careful since the first time they bumped into each other in New York. Harry doesn’t know if they’ve ever been careful with each other and the thought is sadder than he can handle right now. “Now you’re not anymore?”

Harry sighs and resigns himself to saying, “I don’t know anymore,” with a breath he hopes will disperse his words in the air and send them flying away.

Zayn doesn’t look at him, but he sighs out a, “Yeah.” It feels like he’s standing half inside of Harry, one foot in one foot out, feeling everything Harry’s feeling, seeing his thoughts, seeing right through him like he’s always been able to.

There’s a chance, a big chance that isn’t just a chance, that Zayn knows Harry is talking about him. Harry doesn’t get his hopes up either way. The knowledge he’d be okay with Zayn knowing settles somewhere in him, heavy but comfortable. It doesn’t feel like a game anymore, here, standing on Zayn’s balcony. Harry doesn’t want to tuck anything away for later. He looks at Zayn and though he’ll never tell Louis he’s been right all along, Harry thinks  _ it is what it is _ and  _ it was what it was _ . And somehow, both are okay.

But only a couple of days later, on a Sunday where the weather manages to squeeze in a last day of summer in between nights that have been far too cold already, like a last effort or a twisted wholehearted goodbye to the season and a lot of other things as well, everything stops being okay and good and stubbornly not weird from one second to the next in such a visceral way, it nearly knocks Harry out.

It’s late afternoon that Chelsea comes over but doesn’t take off her boots when Harry lets her in and she goes to sit on the couch. She pats the spot next to her with a smile that does everything else but makes Harry want to sit down.

“Come on, we need to talk,” she says easily, still smiling, except it doesn’t really reach her eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Harry asks, slow and careful, thinking if he’s done something. He stops before he can start.

“Not wrong, just…”

She doesn’t even need to finish before Harry sighs out, “Yeah,” and sits down.

“I know what I said,” she starts as soon as he does. Harry looks at her talk, the freckles over her nose, her blue eyes that are actually gray. She never wears rings, but there’s always at least five necklaces twisted around her neck that bumped his chin every time she climbed on top of him. She’s a good person. Chelsea is a lot of things to Harry, he feels a lot of things for her, but maybe even all of them together would never be enough. “I know what this was,” she motions between them before she goes to hold Harry’s hand, “I don’t want you to feel like you’ve done something to hurt me, we were never–”

They never were, but Harry still gets caught up with everything he’s done in the past two months that he probably definitely shouldn’t have. At least Chelsea won’t end up being the one who gets hurt the most.

“I just don’t want to come between anything,” Chelsea finishes and it’s that more than anything else that makes his heart clench.

“You’re not,” he says and then insists, “You’re really, really not.”

“Harry.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Right.” She leans back into the couch and tucks herself into his side. It’s comforting, familiar. She was the first thing and probably the only one that was Harry’s first in New York. She’s the only person that’s his first and foremost here. “Adam told me, after that time you all got drunk in the studio and he threw up like a jackass.”

“I didn’t know you knew.”

“I think he was trying to warn me,” she chuckles, and she still hasn’t let go of Harry’s hand. “But you’re a lot more transparent that you think you are, you know?”

Harry wants to ask, but he ends up just looking at her.

“You were sad,” she shrugs. “I don’t know, I got the feeling there must’ve been someone back in LA.” Harry huffs at that and she says, “Guess I was right,” with a brighter smile than Harry’s ever seen on her. She was always fun, but they never laughed together.

Harry pulls her closer into himself and hopes she stays being his person.

“What’re you going to do now?”

Though Harry’s never said it out loud, saying, “He’s getting married,” slides off his tongue easier than he thought it would. “So there’s not much I can do,” doesn’t.

“Oh, babe.”

He guesses this is the best time as any to finally throw that tantrum. Harry could curl up around Chelsea’s warmth and cry all over her shoulder, and he’s pretty sure she’d let him, but since there’s really nothing he can do, he settles for staying where he is for a little longer, while he tells her what he can bring himself to remember from before.

“Adam said…” she starts but bites her lip. Harry can feel her apprehension. So he says, “I do,” and though it shouldn’t make sense, it somehow does.

“Do you think you could talk to him?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just tell him, tell him the truth maybe. Start there.”

It sounds so simple and easy that Harry wishes it was. “He knows,” he shrugs. “But I guess it doesn’t matter since he’s still getting married.”

There’s nothing to say after that, so they don’t. They sit there until Chelsea has to go. She hugs him and Harry has to close his eyes, but after she leaves, he feels better. Lighter somehow, like a part of that gaping hole has been filled in a little. It lasts until Zayn texts him that weekend when Harry’s about to get out of the car to walk down a red carpet to another award show he doesn’t know why he’s attending. He doesn’t make it out of the car, just texts back  _ on my way _ .

Harry doesn’t understand how it happened, but it has, and he only realizes once his glass is empty and there’s something telling him he shouldn’t drink another one. But since Zayn does, pours himself another two inches of the whiskey he pulled out of a cupboard in the living room and held it against his chest like it was something special, but then poured it like he wanted it gone just as much, Harry tips his glass closer.

Somehow, along the way, Harry’s lost track of time. Or he lost track of everything, but especially of when it all began and when it ended and how it stopped, started and then rolled right past him as if he doesn’t always keep a watch on his wrist, just to make sure he never misses any of it.

The only mistake he can think of making, is keeping track of it by Zayn, because he wasn’t just another moment in time that marked a new chapter or a big thing or a tiny tiny thing cradled in Harry’s arms. Zayn was a beginning that stretched and stretched and Harry can’t remember for how long and now he’s lost.

“She doesn’t like you, did I tell you?” Zayn says and leans his head back, looking up at the sky.

Harry takes a sip as he listens to him laugh and asks, “Who?” because they were  _ just _ talking about how the wedding has been moved to January.

Zayn turns his head so he can squint at him and says, “Jenny,” in a conspiratorial whisper, which sounds about right.

“Oh, really?” Harry doesn't know why he’s smirking, because he shouldn’t be smirking, but he is. “It’s not like she’s even met me. Should I be offended? Or worried?”

“Yeah, well,” Zayn sighs and leans back into the lounger. He was kind enough to haul a dining room chair out for Harry. “She’s heard enough about you, apparently, so.”

“She has?” Harry feels stupid. He doesn’t like feeling stupid.

Zayn snorts at him like he’s stupid. “Of course she has.”

“And,” Harry drawls, doesn’t know if he wants to ask what he’s about to ask. “What has she heard?”

“Oh, good things, very good things.”

“Mmm.”

“You don’t believe me.” Zayn presses his glass against his chest. He has a lot of feelings for that whiskey.

“Of course I don’t. She  _ hates  _ me.”

“Okay, I didn’t say hate, just, I don’t know. She said you aren’t convincing her, that’s it,” Zayn says quickly, sitting up with his bare feet back on the ground so that he’s turned to Harry. He leans his elbows against his knees and settles an intense and only slightly shifty gaze on him. “I told her about your music,  _ Sign of the Times _ , played it to her.”

Harry wants to focus on the convincing part, but he asks, “What did she think?” for now.

Zayn snorts, “She hated it.”

“Hey.”

Zayn reaches his hand out to squeeze Harry’s knee. “Who cares what she thinks, she’s stupid anyway.”

Harry leans away from him with that. “Zayn,” he says slowly.

“It’s true though, she doesn’t even have friends,” Zayn says with that tone again, like he’s telling Harry a secret he shouldn’t be telling, “She works all the time. She doesn’t even like  _ me _ .”

“ _ Zayn _ .”

“It doesn’t  _ matter _ , okay?” He’s sliding closer to the edge of his seat. “She’s– She’s not here, she never is and–”

“And?” Harry asks, because this is the point where nothing is okay anymore and he’s pretty sure that when he breaks in half, the crack will be a loud, audible  _ snap. _

Zayn huffs, shakes his head and closes his eye, but he also gets to his feet, looks down at Harry for a second and then climbs into his lap like he’s done, Harry bites his lip at the thought, so many times before.

“It doesn’t matter,” Zayn says again, running his hands around Harry’s neck. He’s tucking his fingers into the hair at the bottom of Harry’s neck and Harry tries not to, he does, but he ends up holding Zayn by his waist, but only so he doesn’t topple over. “She’s not here,” Zayn says again, like Harry hasn’t noticed.

“I know she’s not,” he nearly snorts, but he ends up almost choking on his own spit when Zayn says, in a fast whisper, like he can’t wait to get it out, “You loved me.”

That gap, where everything used to be but just sort of isn’t anymore, expands by a few miles. It probably is big enough to fit an entire Zayn now.

Instead of agreeing or repeating himself or curling up into a ball on the floor and crying until Zayn leaves him alone, Harry presses his fingers into Zayn’s waist and says, “You loved me too,” like it’s an accusation instead of something that’s been keeping him up at night. Because Harry doesn’t know, they never said it, it was never implied.

It’s not like either of them is drunk, there’s too much whiskey left to blame any of this on the alcohol, even if Harry will want to do it tomorrow morning, but when Zayn shakes his head and leans in to say, “Didn’t,” right against Harry’s mouth, he wishes they were. 

When Zayn licks at his bottom lip and murmurs, “Still do,” Harry has all the intention of throwing him off the balcony to show him just how that feels, but he ends up kissing Zayn instead. It’s just as good to get his point across.

There’s a moment where they both pull away to take a breath and it feels like they’re breathing each other in again, not that they ever did before. They bit, they scratched sometimes - Harry’s still proud when he remembers the mess of red blotchy marks he left on Zayn’s back once - but they never took their time. They either didn't let themselves or they had better things to do, like come as fast as possible. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Zayn smells a lot like something Harry shouldn’t be doing, but he also smells like cold spices and smoke and clean, just showered. He smells like if Harry runs a hand down along his spine and settles it at the small of his back, neither of them are going to break into smithereens. 

They kiss on another breath, less soft than the last time, but Harry has a hard time thinking this is happening again, so he focuses on holding Zayn as close as he can and taking every moan he makes as his own. That’s not hard to think about. When his hand slips lower and he presses his fingers into the flesh of Zayn’s ass though, and Zayn moans into his mouth, Harry thinks he’ll take the smithereens if he just gets to have this beforehand.

He pulls Zayn closer and bites at his lip, lets Zayn unbutton his shirt and sneak his hands into it, lets him dig his nails into the skin. They never were like this before, desperate and harsh and panting because they couldn’t catch their breath. It was always playful or slow, laughing when Harry elbowed Zayn in the middle of getting them into position or getting comfortable between Zayn’s knees because he wanted to take everything he could get. Harry wants to take it now too, all of it, down to the last second he can hold on to. He’s so desperate, his fingers are sticky with it as he touches Zayn’s shoulder, dragging his nails over to his neck and then down his back again so he leaves as many traces behind as he can.  _ I was here. I am here.  _

Harry hopes he always will be, but since they can barely get an honest word out between them, can talk about anything that isn’t Harry and Zayn or Zayn and Harry, Harry doesn’t say it out loud. He kisses it into Zayn instead, bites it in his lip and whines it out when Zayn presses his hips down and forward.

They’re drunk. Not on the alcohol or the truth or anything that could sound poetic if only they’d ever find the right words. They’re drunk on the past catching up with them, on Zayn’s broken moan when Harry cups his dick through his sweats, on Harry feeling Zayn’s teeth at his throat and thinking  _ fuck, not yet _ .

Instead of slowing down, it almost feels like time’s having trouble keeping up with them, skipping and skipping over seconds and minutes, until it can’t anymore, falling over it’s twisted up hands.

Zayn bites at his neck, licks over the almost-bruise as whispers, “Fuck, you left,” right next to Harry ear just as he rolls his hips against Harry’s hand.

Harry thinks about throwing him off the balcony again. “I asked you if I should leave,” he gritts through his teeth. He can’t focus on just one thing, he feels like he’s wrapped up too tightly in Zayn and can’t even breathe. “You could’ve told me to stay and you know I would’ve.” He pulls Zayn tighter against himself.

“Don’t you see how shitty that was?” Zayn’s lips hang open, bitten to a bruised red. “If you wanted to stay, you shouldn’t have been leaving in the first place. Just-” Zayn licks over Harry’s bottom lip. “What were you thinking?”

Harry stutters. “What?”

“I just felt like…” Zayn leans away and looks at him. It doesn’t feel right to keep his hand anywhere near Zayn’s dick, so Harry lets it fall away. Now they’re just staring at each other. “I felt like you only loved me, because you wanted me to love you back. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work, Harry.”

He wants to scream at Zayn that he  _ just _ said, he just said he loved Harry back, but he can’t make himself say anything but, “Oh, so how is it  _ supposed _ to work then? Because between you and me, you were the bigger asshole.”

“I told you, I never wanted a relationship, you can’t-”

“It was my decision,” Harry says as his hands clench into fist. He’ll blame Zayn for a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them. “I know you didn’t force me into it, but you never should’ve have offered it either. You knew how I felt.”

“But how did I feel?”

“I don’t know,” Harry’s trying to not scream into Zayn’s face, but it’s getting harder to hold back. “You never said anything.”

“I’m saying it now.”

“You’re still not, though,” Harry laughs dryly. He wants to stand up and get away from him, but Zayn’s still in his lap and he sounds more exasperated and more desperate than Harry take. “You still haven’t said.”

“I loved you, okay? And you  _ knew _ I did.” Harry frowns, because it sounds a lot like an accusation Harry doesn’t know what to do with.

His shoulders slump. “I hoped you did,” he says, quiet this time, defeated and tired. He’s barely even hard anymore. “I didn’t know.”

Zayn snorts, “Come on, of course you did.”

“How could I have?”

“Harry-”

“We were just messing around. We were friends.” Harry’s been over this. Again and again and again, he’s been over this when they were still friends, when they weren’t and now, whatever they even are now - a fucked up, bruised and battered mess. At least that’s what Zayn looks like. Keeping his eyes on him, so he can see it clearly, Harry says, “We’re not even that now,” and waits for the thing that’s going to flash over Zayn’s wide eyes. It ends up being a mixture of hurt, sadness and what Harry thinks is a daunting realization that he’s still very much engaged. 

“Harry.”

“I can’t be your friend,” Harry decides then, because Zayn is slipping out of his lap by slow increments and the fact that Harry was beginning to start something new, something fresh, without his past dragging him down along the way until Zayn showed up is probably even more daunting. It doesn’t have to be Zayn’s fault, but it’s true. “We weren’t really friends before, were we?”

“I though-” Zayn starts, but Harry cuts him off with a firm shake of his head.

“I loved you then. There’s not a time that you can think of that I didn’t love you. But that’s okay,” Harry almost insists. “That’s- We just won’t be friends.”

_ Time doesn’t stop for friends.  _ Harry was right. And maybe they are inevitable, just not right now. Right now, Harry has to help Zayn stand up, so he can pick up his jacket from the floor and button up his shirt. Harry has to ignore the way Zayn’s looking at him, like he’s gearing up to say something that’s going to be incredibly stupid like ‘I’d leave her for you’. Harry would believe him and they’d both end up getting hurt.  _ That’s _ inevitable.

“I’m gonna go,” he says once enough of the buttons are done up. Harry manages to get all the way to the door before he turns around to look at Zayn, who's standing right behind him. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Zayn’s looking at the floor, so it makes it easier to open the door and step outside. It takes him a second to look up at Harry and he actually doesn’t wish he hadn’t, even if Zayn's eyes shine a lot like shattered pieces of glass.

“Can I call you at least? Sometimes?”

Harry smiles, almost laughs as he says, “Of course. Anytime.”

Zayn manages a smile back, so they end up standing there just, looking at each other, taking the moment they didn’t the last time Harry left. Harry always liked the drag of Zayn's eyes, shifting from his mouth, down his neck, torso, sometimes going down to the tips of his boots and up again, all the way back to Harry’s eyes. Like a touch, Harry would feel it on his skin afterwards, even when he left and Zayn stayed and it had been a year since the last time they saw each other. All the bruises Zayn left were gone and he couldn't remember how his fingers felt in his hair or the flat of his hand on the small of his back, but Harry could remember his eyes. The slow blink of them, long long eyelashes, wide and open and glowing in sunshine.

Not that any of it matters though, even if Zayn eventually leans closer to him to kiss Harry’s cheek like he used to with a promised, “I will, I’ll call you,” because Harry changes his number the next day. 

Two weeks after that, Harry books a flight and a house and gets everyone to go with him, even Mitch, who finally gets to quit his job. It’s just Harry’s luck though, that he’s still home to open the off-white envelope and read the silver cursive cordially inviting him to the soon-to-be-Malik’s wedding at the beginning of December.

At least, in the end, Harry has the courtesy of not showing up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come by my [tumblr](http://itsallaboutzarry.tumblr.com/) to chat.
> 
> Title from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPcPtd3k-Qg).  
> Chapter titles from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZBG3MUgDbY).


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